History Repeats Itself
by WrenchWielder
Summary: Skyfire and Starscream weren't lovers. They weren't even friends. They were twins. Thankfully, in a world where such things are seen as abominations, the differences in energy output of their shared spark kept anyone from even considering the idea.
1. Onlining

**A/N: I had a story I really wanted to do and was working on it in my head for a while (like began between chapter 2 and 3 of TL a while), but there were several major plot holes I couldn't figure out how to fill. The summery is a bunny I liked from my trip to the bunny farm and for a while it was just a fun thing that I was going to mess with in my head, until I realized it filled all my plot holes perfectly. It's going to be a while before we get to the part of the story I was originally going to write about, but I think the two ideas together are even better.**

 **I hope you enjoy it. Oh, and just in case it wasn't clear: I don't own transformers.**

Jackknife watched over the operation room where the medics were going to finally detach their newspark from his trine's sparkmate with tense anticipation. His trinemates stood to either side of him in similar states of emotion. While excited to have their very own sparkling, they had become concerned when an unnatural gold had developed, running through the little spark and growing; at this point running through the entirety of the spark. Sparks were blue. End of story. They could be all different shades of blue, but sparks were blue. The medics had assured them that while they had never seen anything like it, it didn't seem to be harmful and was, in fact, extremely healthy despite the strange color.

Across from his sparkmate's offline frame was a first frame for a seeker and an aerial. Once the spark was extracted it would choose which frame suited it better. Usually, medics knew at this point what kind of spark was being carried and the caretakers could focus on putting programing that they were hoping the spark would take to into the appropriate frame. As the doctors had no clue which their spark would choose they had put equal care into the coding for what they wanted if it was a seeker or aerial.

Ready to start the procedure the medics opened Rainhaven's sparkchamber. Using their specialized tools they pulled the newspark from Rainhaven's spark and put it into a flimsy temporary containment field. Bringing it over to the first frames, they waited for it to choose one, but it wouldn't. They were going to have to choose for it. They looked to Jackknife in silent question.

"The aerial frame." Aerial frames were more likely to be carrier sparks, flight frame carrier sparks being even less common than ground frame carriers, with about one for every six or seven trines, and they weren't going to pass up the chance to choose one. The medics placed the spark in the winglet's sparkchamber but the spark rejected it. The gold seeming to withdraw and the spark flickered unhealthily. The same thing seemed to happen in the seekerlet's sparkchamber, only the blue seemed to withdraw and the spark flickered dangerously. The medics withdrew it again quickly. Looking at each other they were unsure what to make of this. One of the medics tentatively pointed out that the blue and gold where emitting readings that were almost imperceptibly different. It was decided to try extracting the gold with the same method they used to detach a newspark from their carrier. It worked and the healthy blue spark chose the aerial frame. The frame began to hum to life as the spark integrated into it; the color nanites in the outer armor activating and slowly turning white. The feeling of relief that settled over the room was quickly stilled and chased away by a sense of dread when the gold they had extracted coalesced and formed a spark of its own. The medics looked among each other, horrified. They had just essentially split a spark and created twins. They had just created a pair of abominations. Looking to Jackknife for his reaction, it was about what they expected.

"Get rid of it." Rainhaven would have vehemently objected if she was online, but they had their winglet. His trine and Rainhaven weren't bonded. She had no way of knowing they'd split the spark unless someone in this room told her. He could easily tell her the gold had naturally dissipated once removed from her sparkchamber and she would believe him. Jackknife could tell that Razorblaze wanted to object, but a sharp reprimand across the trine bond from both trine leader and right wing silenced him.

The medics turned off the temporary containment field. Newsparks were especially fragile and unstable, they couldn't survive even a few astroseconds outside of some kind of stabilization field. Only, it did. They waited far longer that even the strongest of sparks would have taken to destabilize and dissipate and still it floated there. One of the medics lifted a spark stabilizer, used by pulsing electricity as similar to a spark's frequency as possible, and set it as dissonant to the gold spark as he could. The rest of the room looked on in sick detached fascination as he set it as high as possible and used it on the spark. It writhed and flared, it flickered and tried to escape the medic, but it didn't die. Alarms hooked up to the other's frame began screeching as the spark within it began to destabilize. Razorblaze moved forwards to stop them when the winglet's vocalizer activated and he began screaming. Like lightning, the gold spark immediately arced to the blue spark, wrapping around it. Jackknife watched, expression blank, as the spark and the moving, shifting mass of life energy stabilized each other. He took a step closer and the gold spark energy arced to the seeker frame, instantly coming online and rolling so that he had and arm protectively on either side of his twin supporting him above the other. Their optics onlined at the same time and liquid gold met the color of the sky.

"Skyfire." The seekerlet said reverently.

"Starscream." The winglet whispered back in awe.

Jackknife looked between them. He wasn't sure if they were introducing themselves to each other or if they had onlined knowing each other's designations. One of the medics shifted and caught the twins' attention. The winglet, Starscream? Skyfire? looked at them all with innocent curiosity. The seekerlet, looked at them much more distrustfully. He slowly gazed over them all over before landing on the medic that had misused the spark stabilizer. Another medic had grabbed it when the winglet screamed, but he ignored the one holding it, focusing on the one that had actually used it. His whole frame tensed defensively causing the winglet to look up at him. The seekerlet turned his attention to give Jackknife a challenging glare and that's when he knew; the gold spark remembered. Despite having no processor to write the memories on; the gold spark remembered what had just transpired.

"Bring Rainhaven back online." At this point it was obvious there was no getting rid of just the gold spark and he needed Rainhaven's help on deciding what they were going to do about their sparklings.

The medics did so quickly, they were horrified to have created a pair of split sparks and the sooner they began covering this up the better. Rainhaven, who found all life precious, decided she loved them both, despite the fact that they were split sparks. Thankfully she understood why the fact that they were twins couldn't become common knowledge. In the end it was decided that it would be easiest to put them down as siblings sparked at nearly the same time. Skyfire, the winglet, would be older as he had been the one put in a frame first and an orn or two from now they would fill out the files for Starscream, the seekerlet. Rainhaven, Jackknife, and his trine would stay at the hospital during the interim to help support the illusion. The medics had them sign disclosures that basically ensured the caretakers would never vent a word of what happened and that the medics currently in the room were the two sparklings' only doctors from here on out. It would be painfully obvious to any half trained medic that the winglet registered with two thirds of a spark and the seekerlet registered with one third of a spark; the only way to get something like that being split sparks.

Jackknife watched as the twins recharged tangled together, just like they always did. Skyfire acted like any normal sparkling, but Starscream… Gold optics onlined to coolly regard him back. The medics had confirmed that, however his memories were stored, it wasn't on his processor. He could clearly remember what had been said and been done before he had a frame with which to get any kind input or record said input. He knew Jackknife had without hesitation told the medics to get rid of him. Jackknife couldn't help but wonder what it would mean for him when Starscream was grown.

 **A/N: Yes, very short. I'm going to give absolutely no thought to length and instead focus on what I want to group in the same chapter. The next chapter's going to be longer.**


	2. Family Dynamics

**A/N: So, the poll's gone. I kept forgetting about it and honestly it just stressed me out.**

Their first orn home, their caretakers had tried to pull Starscream aside and give him a talk. They still gave him the whole spiel they'd intended to: how he would feel it in his spark when he found his trinemates, how all three would instinctually know what part of the trine they were, stressing how important not ignoring even possible feelings was. They merely did it with Skyfire sitting there as well.

The next cycle Jackknife, with his trinemates in tow, took Starscream, with Skyfire in tow, to a large social center. The premise of these places was to help seekerlings find their trines as early in life as possible and to help with their development while they were there. Their sires had filled out some paperwork to sign Starscream up for sessions and filled out the single visitor allowance, meant for a carrier or sire of new or clingy seekerlets, for Skyfire. The coordinating caretaker at the front desk gave Skyfire an unsure look but allowed it. They gripped each other's servos tightly entering the main atrium where all the seekerlets interacted and played. Both were excited to see other sparklings.

Starscream happily led Skyfire around by the servo, meeting as many new friends as possible; Skyfire content to follow his lead. They enjoyed it the first few visits, but the coordinators grew concerned with Starscream's lack of desire to do anything without Skyfire.

Starscream's personal coordinator, Lightring, was convinced he was doing the right thing the cycle he wouldn't let Skyfire into the room. Starscream spent that entire session pressed against the wall and screamed energon soaked murder if you so much as tried to pull him away from it. When Starscream's sires came to pick him up again, Lightring had a talk with them about his concerns. The reactions he got were mixed, though they all seemed to agree with him. He asked if it was possible not to bring Skyfire in the future. They basically told him Starscream wasn't going to come without him. They said not to worry about it and he began letting Skyfire in the room again.

XoXoXoX

It seemed so normal to them, how often their caretakers would fight. Their caretakers had been together long before the two of them had come along, so it must be a normal thing. The twins never bothered trying to figure out what they argued about because it was just so normal, why would it matter? The two first frames played in the common room, ignoring the heated argument in the background. They hadn't even realized it had stopped until Carrier appeared in the doorway. She expressionlessly looked the two of them over.

"Come here Skyfire." Rainhaven's vocalizer was static laden from abuse but otherwise was just as emotionless as her gaze. The two sparklings looked at each other nervously, before both standing.

"Just Skyfire." The hard edge to their carrier's voice surprised them. That tone had never come from her before. Their hands subconsciously found each other. Hesitantly, Skyfire took halting steps forwards. He stopped when to move forwards they would have to let go and looked at Rainhaven.

"Closer." The uncharacterist edge confused them and Skyfire found himself complying. Unused to any distance, Skyfire wasn't able to make it all the way to Rainhaven before the twin bond felt uncomfortably stretched, felt almost painful.

"Closer."

"I can't." At the whimpered words some kind of regret flickered behind Rainhaven's optics. That small show of relent was all the permission Starscream needed to fling himself forwards. The two clutching each other like it had been vorns since they'd last seen each other. Their frames were about the same size, but Starscream still tried to envelop Skyfire as best he could. He'd known he needed to protect them from Jackknife and Poisonblade, now he was aware of the possibility he needed to protect them from Rainhaven as well.

There was more yelling when it was time for recharge, and though they couldn't make out the words, they had a suspicion it was about them.

The next cycle there was no fighting. They didn't know why and they didn't feel like leaving their room to find out. Jackknife came anyways. He stood in the doorway, commanding Starscream to come forwards.

"No." Starscream defiantly stared his sire down. Going so far as to throw himself into a sitting position, pulling Skyfire on top of him and wrapping his arms around the winglet.

Jackknife moved quickly. Grabbing Starscream by the wrist he dragged the seekerlet out of the room, locking Skyifre inside. Starscream was quickly pulled beyond how far their bond was ready to stretch. He didn't remain online much longer after.

XoXoXoX

Starscream onlined again in the guest bedroom next to the one they shared. He tried the door. When that didn't work he quickly moved over to the wall where he knew Skyfire was just on the other side of. They sat on opposite sides of the wall wishing it wasn't there so they could hold each other. Their spark still throbbed a little bit from the unwanted separation and being in their own home somehow made this worse than at the social center.

Starscream pressed at the wall contemplatively. When they first separated, he had been fine outside his sparkchamber. He saw no reason why that would change. Opening his chest and sparkchamber, he left his frame. Awareness was different without a frame to get input from, more feeling than anything. Regardless, he was able cross the solid barriers his frame had not been able to, happiness blooming across their shared spark. Weariness overtook him and Starscream was aware of Skyfire carefully bringing his servos up to gently cradle him. He sent gratitude over their bond. Everything was so much harder without a frame. Even if he wanted to, he didn't think he'd make it back to his own frame. He'd just have to spend a while in Skyfire's frame.

He slipped down through the seams in Skyfire's armor and used the wires underneath to carry him to the other's spark chamber. He crossed the barrier that kept Skyfire's spark contained there much more carefully than he had his own. They embraced each other as only a split spark could. Starscream couldn't connect to the aerial frame properly, but this close he could receive whatever input Skyfire was getting. Skyfire's frame fell into recharge with a smile on its face, its habitants tangled together even closer than usual.

XoXoXoX

They woke to a panicked wail. Starscream tried and failed to connect to the frame he was in. Skyfire leapt up. The door was unlocked now and he headed to the hall outside their room.

"You killed them! I told you we couldn't separate them too fast!"

"We're not dead Carrier." All of their caretakers looked scared and confused to see them. Rainhaven in particular kept glancing into the guest bedroom. Realization dawned on Jackknife's face before disgust overtook it. Poisonblade wasn't that far behind.

"You're both in there." Skyfire nodded, confused at their Sire's reaction. A horrified look came over Razorblaze's face. Rainhaven didn't look at them when she spoke.

"Get back in your own frame Starscream." They didn't want to. Not after Jackknife had tried to separate them so far. The distant, haunted look Rainhaven wore is probably what prompted Skyfire over to Starscream's frame. There he kneeled close, opening his chest plates and spark chamber. Starscream carefully slipped passed Skyfire's containment barrier again, falling into his own frame and onlining it quickly. They stood together, missing each other already, servos intertwined and wondering why their caretakers were looking at them like that.

XoXoXoX

Starscream warily watched his sires the entire way over to the social center. Their caretakers had left them alone to discuss something after finding them in the same frame the previous cycle. Razorblaze had been acting skittish ever since, which was never good for the two of them. Razorbalze was generally a strong person, but put him against his trinemates and he crumbled like rust. He didn't like whatever his trinemates had coerced him into, but agreed enough he wasn't going to put up a fight. It was one more reason why Starscream didn't care if he never found his trine.

The five of them entered the social center. Jacknife walked over to the registration desk like normal but Poisonblade walked away to speak with Lightring in soft tones. Starscream did _not_ like Lightring. He didn't care if the mech was trying to do the right thing. Lightring was stupid and definitely doing the wrong thing. The coordinator brought Poisonblade over to the registration desk where he had the receptionist pull up several extra files. Starscream felt his bad feeling grow with each new file that was completed. Skyfire was just as nervous as he was and their servos gripped each other's just a little tighter.

It felt like an eternity later when their sires finished the data files. Starscream inched towards the main doors, pulling Skyfire with him; eager to deal with the other seekerlets and Lightring at his worst if it meant getting away from whatever his sires had planned. Jackknife, Poisonblade, and Lightring all approached. Starscream looked over at Razorblaze, whatever it was that Razorblaze didn't like was happening now. Lightring kneeled down and said in a sickeningly comforting tone,

"I'm afraid the two of you won't be able to hold servos this cycle."

Starscream kept his optics locked on Lightring's, ready for whatever the seeker tried to pull. A mistake, he realized a moment later as Skyfire was ripped out of his grasp by Jackknife. Jackknife picked Skyfire up and held him firmly, walking towards the exit. Before either could protest the separation, Lightring did the same for Starscream and headed into the main atrium.

It didn't take them long to figure out what was happening and they both began to fight. Jackknife plugged something into Skyfire's main medical port and his motions were reduced to trembles. Starscream felt Skyfire's shock and distress as he lost motor control, prompting him to fight harder. It took calling out one of Lightring's trinemates to get Starscream into the atrium and his whole trine to get Starscream to stay there.

Mercifully, Lightring's trine didn't force Starscream too far in, but his bond with Skyfire was still stretching. It wasn't until he was collapsed in pain and he could feel Skyfire slipping towards unconsciousness that Jackknife stopped pulling them apart.

Starscream came to loath the visits to the social center as each trip they were separated a little bit further.

They were almost ready for second frames when it came time for the trip where Skyfire was to stay all the way at home while Starscream went to the social center. Skyfire was powered down in a recharge like state in his room and Starscream fought his sires for all he was worth. Rainhaven was absent, as she tended to be these days.

"I'm not going! I hate the social center!" He screamed. Jackknife looked ready to resort to physical violence, long since frustrated by Starscream's behavior.

"Do you have any idea how low the chances of merely stumbling on your trine in the streets are? The social center is necessary for finding your trine."

"I don't need a trine! I already have Skyfire!"

"You stupid freak of nature! A trine is the only chance you have at even a semblance of normality. If you're lucky, a trine bond will be just strong enough to keep you alive when you sever your bond with him."

"The monster spent how long outside a sparkchamber without destabilizing? I wouldn't be surprised if he survived severing the bond without a trine."

Starscream put a protective servo over his chest plating and pressed himself up against the wall, ready to leave his frame and bolt through the wall if it became absolutely necessary. He was getting better at maneuvering without one and was pretty sure he could make it to Skyfire's frame.

Razorblaze acted on Starscream's distress; placing himself in a non-threatening position and saying,

"Now Starscream, even if we wanted to, the three of us couldn't sever your bond with Skyfire." He continued over Poisonblade's not so muttered 'Oh I want to alright.' "We're just trying to help you. Trine is a wonderful thing originating from a seeker's very spark. We know you love Skyfire. And either way he is your sibling; it's good that you love him. But I need you to understand how important it is for all seekerlings to find their trines. There are two sparks out there made just for you, and you're made just for them. Don't you want to meet them?" There was a long pause while Starscream visibly thought that over.

"Skyfire and I share a spark. If that's where trine comes from, wouldn't that mean they're meant for Skyfire _and me_ , and we're both meant for them?"

Uncertainty crossed Razorblaze's face and he leaned away, obviously unsettled by the idea.

"No. That's not how trines work." Razorblaze didn't sound certain. He looked to his own trine for confirmation. They looked like they didn't want to consider the idea either. "No, they're supposed to replace him." Razorblade was too busy having a mild panic attack to realize his slip. "The medics agreed to sever—"

"Razorblaze!" But it was too late. Starscream had no doubt the rest of the sentence was going to be along the lines of sever the bond once he'd found his trine. He began edging away from the one caretaker he'd been sure was on their side.

"That would kill him." Though Skyfire's portion of their spark was by no means weak, there was no question whose portion was stronger. If their medics were worried about Starscream surviving without a trine, how was Skyfire supposed to? Razorblaze began trying to cover his mistake.

"It would be in the medical center; with all of your medics and all sorts of equipment nearby. They have different ways of improving his chances of survival that you don't need to worry about. The procedure wouldn't happen before the chances were high enough that we wouldn't lose either of you. I know it's hard to see from your perspective, but this is the best for both of you. If the two of you break your bond there's a chance your sparks will actually recognize being partial sparks and will begin healing towards full individual sparks." But Starscream was having none of it. It had always been them. Their spark. Two minds. And the thought of it just being him was terrifying.

"NO! No one is ever going to replace Skyfire! I'm never getting a trine and you can't make me!" That was the first time Jackknife hit him.

When the twins upgraded to second frames, their sires sat Starscream down, while Skyfire waited outside the locked room, and gave another long lecture on not ignoring his spark. If he ever felt anything looking at another seeker he was to talk to them. From then on he used that as his excuse not to talk to anyone. After all, he didn't feel anything towards them.

XoXoXoX

After the transfer to second frames their caretakers put an actual training program in place to allow the two the ability to separate more comfortably. It was drastically sped up the second time they were caught sharing Skyfire's frame. For their own good, they were told. A sore spark was a constant they were slowly getting used to.

Starscream had run off and hidden. There were always strange mechs over, most of them all concerned about the fact that his caretakers wanted a divorce. He had no doubt that Skyfire was getting the same visits. It was supposedly a big deal because divorces never happened, even with groups that didn't actually bond, but with all the fighting they did Starscream had to wonder why they became sparkmates in the first place.

Rainhaven had taken Skyfire and they were currently living in a lower floor. Without Skyfire with him all the mechs claiming to want to help him through such a traumatizing ordeal were just grating and loud and he didn't like them. Sometimes he just needed to get away.

Noise behind him alerted him to someone's approach. He didn't have to look to know it was Skyfire. Skyfire dropped down to sit beside him and Starscream leaned against him. No matter how far he went, or how well he hid, Skyfire always seemed to know exactly where and how to find him. And more importantly, knew when he really needed him.

Starscream wished he could do that for Skyfire.

Unsatisfied with their arrangement, Starscream crawled into Skyfire's lap. Skyfire hadn't really been any bigger than him as a first frame, but Skyfire seemed to be leaning towards becoming a shuttle frame like their carrier, and with their upgrades to second frames there was a more defined difference in size.

"Carrier wants to move to Altihex." Skyfire began. "There's a bigger need for transport mecha there."

"But the bond won't stretch that far!"

"It will eventually."

"They can't do that!" Of course their caretakers could. But they were already kept so far apart. They sat in silence for a while, before Starscream asked what had been eating at him for most of the cycle.

"What did our sires want to talk to you about?"

"What do you mean?" Starscream glared up at him. Skyfire knew exactly what he meant. "They really were just switching us for the cycle. They didn't specifically want to talk to me about anything." He kept glaring. Something had left Skyfire feeling devastated. And it had begun this cycle; while their sires had been taking care of him. He needed to know what had upset Skyfire so he could fix it. He was held a little bit tighter and Skyfire looked away. "Poisonblade warned me not to interfere when you found your trine, 'cause you need one to be healthy, that's all."

"No it's not."

"I… they said— …I want you to be healthy, and— but, I don't want to lose you." Snippets of memories and a summary of the conversation flowed across their link.

"I don't plan on letting them sever our sparkbond and unless you—"

"Of course not! But, you won't be able to form a bond without me if you don't"

Starscream leaned back and sent excess spark energy to Skyfire's frame. It interfered a little bit with Skyfire's neural grid, but it comforted them both.

"Stupid, I'm always going to choose you over a trine. They just don't get that we're _one spark._ " He thought back to the other cycle when one of the other seekerlets that Starscream had a particular distaste for had come up to him claiming that he could feel Starscream was part of his trine. Starscream told the other sparkling exactly what he'd thought of that before telling him he could take his lying self back to his caretakers.

All three of his sires had scolded him for behaving so rudely. And how ignoring the feelings in his spark was dooming him to a life of loneliness. He had retorted that he wasn't ignoring them, because they weren't there. Jackknife had wondered if abominations even had trines, and Poisonblade muttered that it was probably Skyfire's fault.

Most seekerlets were at least a pair before their second frame; many found their full trine before their second frame. It was a rare thing indeed for a seeker not to have found both of his trinemates by third frame, and usually at that point you weren't going to find them. Starscream only knew a handful of other single second frame seekerlets and a couple of those had stopped coming when they joined a pair.

"I think they do get it, and that's the problem. They understand and are scared of it."

"Morons."

Melancholy stubbornly lingered in Skyfire's portion of their spark. Good thing Starscream knew just how to fix that. Starscream slipped off his lap into open sky and hovered in front of him, eagerly inviting Skyfire to join him.

They both had an aptitude for flight; and though Starscream's frame was the one more suited to it, Skyfire did a pretty good job matching him. Some of the unease lifted as he slipped off the edge into their playground as well.

They left the ledge and their caretakers expectations for them while they played. One spark, happy to be together while it was able.

 **A/N: I hope anyone reading this is enjoying it. Sorry if that ending line was too sappy for you….**


	3. Childhood

**A/N: Semi plot important filler. Enjoy.**

Skyfire moving to Altihex was a miserable experience for the twins. Their spark hurt and they were too far apart now to simply slip away and find the other. Starscream's portion of their spark was calling to him in that way that said he needed him. It wasn't a strong need, but the knowledge that Starsream needed him at all and he wasn't there grated at his portion. They talked on the vid chat at the end of every cycle, but it wasn't the same as being together.

Altihex was very different from Cybertron's floating city. It did cater some to flight frames, but it was a city built by grounders with grounders in mind.

Rainhaven quickly made friends with several neighbors, and encouraged Skyfire to find other sparklings his age. Skyfire however remained listless; content to lie in his room and will the throbbing in his spark away. It did fade with time, but still he focused on his spark, trying to reach out to the rest of it.

He ignored the knock on his door. It opened anyways.

"Skyfire, the family I was telling you about earlier is over. Their sparkling is a second frame too and he'd love some company. Maybe even to show you around." Never one to be rude, Skyfire looked up. He was blue, and large for a grounder; closer to the size of the seekerlets he was used to playing with. His two caretakers were both hosts, so it was likely he would be one as well, which explained his size. Rainhaven left the two of them. Standing, Skyfire put on a smile for the mech.

"My name's Skyfire, it's a pleasure to meet you." Skyfire wasn't very good at reading grounders, as they had no wings to read, but he could tell the grounder was confused. The other sparkling cocked his helm a bit.

"You are sad." It was a flat statement almost devoid of any emotion. "Why?" His smile faltered and his wings drooped.

"I miss my brother."

The grounder stared at him in curiosity a moment more.

"I am Soundwave. I am pleased to meet you as well." And though that statement was given in the same flat tone, Skyfire couldn't help but feel that it was a genuine statement.

Soundwave's family left after a while and Skyfire was convinced that was it. When Soundwave came by to play with him a few cycles later he couldn't honestly say he was unhappy about it. A lot of the other sparklings didn't like Soundwave because they thought he was too distant and creepy. A lot of the other sparklings didn't like Skyfire because of all the prejudice against fliers instilled in them from the time they were onlined. Soundwave would talk about the various friends he'd made all over Cybertron because of how often his caretakers moved, especially his best friend Megatronous from Kaon. While Skyfire talked about the fliers of Vos, especially his brother Starscream. It was a wonderful match.

He managed to make a few other friends after that and he discovered; Altihex wasn't that bad after all.

XoXoXoX

Soundwave wandered through the park alone. Normally Skyfire would be with him, but Skyfire's brother was visiting and Skyfire was going to meet up with him. He didn't need his heightened ability to read other mecha's EM fields to see from across a room that Skyfire was excited. Soundwave had been tempted to read Skyfire's mind to see if he was planning on introducing them. He had no problem reading the minds of strangers, or the bullies that lived on the surrounding floors, but Skyfire was one of his precious few friends and reading their minds felt more like an invasion of privacy. He came to a moral compromise, skimming surface thoughts. All he got was that Skyfire was _really_ excited.

He stopped in surprise when he spotted Skyfire and his carrier waiting for something. He hadn't realized they were meeting here. He looked up to where they were both watching. After a time he noticed a rapidly growing speck in the sky. An alarmingly, rapidly growing mecha. The scream of jet engines pushed to their limits soon followed.

Rainhaven took her restraining servo off Skyfire's shoulder and Skyfire ran forwards a few steps before the two collided. They flew back a good distance, rolling and laughing and clutching each other like their lives depended on it.

"You wouldn't have happened to have missed me would you?"

"Shut up! You missed me too."

"A little."

"A little!? You missed me a lot!"

The adoring smile Skyfire gave his brother made his answer unnecessary. "I know."

Soundwave looked back to where Skyfire's brother had come from and spotted a trine of seekers, coming at a much more sedate pace. Unsure he should be watching, and really not wanting to interrupt the rather tender moment they seemed to be having, he tried to quietly leave, only to catch the seekerling's attention. A light blue servo swung around to point at him.

"You, grounder." Skyfire looked pleasantly surprised to see him and instantly rebuked,

"Starscream, be nice." There was a pause before Starscream amended,

"You, Soundwave." Did Skyfire talk about him so much that his brother could instantly recognize him? "I need to have a talk with you." Soundwave waited for him to continue, but he didn't; instead turning his attention back to Skyfire and completely ignoring him. Skyfire gave him an apologetic look and his wings moved in way Soundwave had learned was also apologetic. Soundwave waved it off, heading away just as the trine landed.

XoXoXoX

Soundwave wasn't sure what woke him from recharge, but online he was, much sooner than normal. He onlined his optics to the terrifying sight of a winged creature perched above him, watching him from the ledge above the head of his berth. It took him a few moments to recognize it as Skyfire's brother, Starscream. That didn't make it any less terrifying though as he had no idea how the seekerlet would have gotten in. Soundwave tried to probe his mind, to figure out what was going on. But Starscream made a face and for the first time in his life, Soundwave was thrown out of another's mind.

"We're gonna have that talk now." The other second frame silently slipped from the shelf to Soundwave's desk. "How often do you read Skyfire's mind?" Despite the surreal situation, or maybe because of it, Soundwave gave him an honest answer,

"I avoid it. Occasionally skimming surface thoughts at most."

Starscream simply sat there, staring into his optics and trying to decide whether he believed Soundwave or not. Soundwave wasn't a very emotional sparkling to begin with and as they sat there the terror slowly morphed into a sort of numb bewilderment.

Starscream leaned towards Soundwave, stopping just short of touching the other. The thought occurred to Soundwave that he should probably be afraid of the seekerlet able to break into his room without setting off any alarms.

"Good." Starscream gave him a little bit of space again. "I originally came in here to thank you. You made him happy here." That single sentence sounded like it pained him to say. Like an afterthought he added, "As long as you continue to do so I'm willing to tolerate you." Unsure what to feel at this point Soundwave watched as Starscream strut out of the room like he was the one that lived here. Soundwave followed him out into the hall, but he was gone. He checked every entrance he could think of, but everything seemed to be in place and exactly as it should. If he believed in such things, he would have said a ghost had visited him.

Soundwave couldn't help but be happy Skyfire was the one who'd moved to Altihex instead of Starscream; all that drama, just for a quick 'thank you.'

XoXoXoX

A pair of third frames sat in the open courtyard of the Vosian temple they had been momentarily left in. Their caretakers were attempting to null all legalities calling them sparkmates somewhere on the grounds. Their carrier wanted a promotion as an interstellar transport. It would be hard enough to get permission with just the tags on her personal profile stating she had a sparkmate, but wanting to bring one of the sparklings they both registered as having partial custody over, there was no way she was getting permission. The adults decided the best way to solve the problem in this case was for Rainhaven to dissolve all legalities stating she had a sparkmate and obtain full custody of Skyfire, giving up all custodies of Starscream.

One of the temple keepers approached the pair, smiling broadly. The glyphs embedded all over his frame suggested he might be the high priest of the temple. The pre-shuttle frame retained his respectful posture; while the seekerling on his lap stopped speaking and looked at the old seeker warily. The possibly high priest stared for what the younglings considered an uncomfortable amount of time. Just watching them. With a _really_ big smile. In a way that probably would have been creepy if it had been anyone else.

Just before the seekerling could snap at him the pre-shuttle put a soothing servo on his wing and politely asked,

"May we help you?" The old temple keeper's grin grew at the question.

"Hmmm, no."

"Then quit staring at us!" There was no verbal or physical admonishment, nor one through their fields, but still the seekerling gave a wince, looking back at his companion with a "What? It's making me uncomfortable."

"May we ask why you're watching us?" The temple keeper visibly thought for a long while, grin in place the whole time.

"I have an idea; let's go to the other courtyard. It has much nicer crystal formations and the two of you would actually be able to play there." The pre-shuttle stood, replacing his lap with an arm under the seekerling. He was half-again his companion's size, but as he was unable to comfortably support the full weight of seekerling, the other threw his arms around pre-shuttle's neck to support some of his own weight. All of this in one fluid, natural motion. The grin grew to the point where any farther and the younglings were sure he would injure himself.

He led them across the grounds and up a bit to another, rather out of the way courtyard. They probably would have missed it just wandering, but it truly was gorgeous. Garden was probably a better name for it than courtyard. The pre-shuttle put the seekerling down, walking over and ghosting a reverent servo over one of the large crystal sculptures framing the entryway. The seekerling automatically followed him. Seemingly out of the blue, the old seeker finally answered them.

"Just pleased to meet the two that Primus was determined to give a happy ending; no matter how many tries it took." They were looking at him oddly now. The seekerling crossed his arms, stating matter of factly,

"Primus doesn't exsist."

"Starscream!" This time he flinched.

"It's true." He muttered. There was no slight buzz of com transmissions in the air, but after a moment of the seekerling shuffling uncomfortably he burst, "Apologize for what?!" As if realizing a horrible mistake they both looked at him, expecting some harsh negative reaction. The old priest's smile didn't drop in the slightest. He gave them an informal goodbye with his wings before heading… somewhere.

"He's weird."

The pre-shuttle let his wings dip in exasperation before heading further into the garden.

"You were thinking it too!"

He scooped the seekerling up again, the seekerling's arms automatically finding their place around his neck. His wings gave another flick of exasperation, but it was teasing this time. And he didn't deny the seekerling's statement.

They played far beyond the time their caretakers had said the legalities would take. Even so, when their caretakers came, frustrated with the 'vague religious mechs that have no sense of direction or memory,' they thought it was too soon.

Their caretakers gave them a moment to say their goodbyes. They clutched each other tightly. Unseen to their caretakers, the seekerling stretched out his spark, keeping enough of the life force in his own chamber to keep the illusion of just a hug, while the rest reached for it's other piece and their sparks embraced.

They pulled away far too soon and were headed different directions. Their sires wanted the seekerling to use his gift for flight to get into Vos's royal guard. Interstellar transport meant their carrier would be taking the pre-shuttle off planet with her, and once experience along with the right upgrades had been gained it was likely they would want the pre-shuttle to be an interstellar transport as well.

The pre-shuttle was excited to see other worlds, and the seekerling was excited to improve his already admirable flight skills. Though they'd both be happier if the other was by their side.

 **A/N: I need to figure out how to stop it with the sappy ending lines...**


	4. Finding Paths

**A/N:** **Hey. So, this was going to be out quite a while ago. But third term kicked my butt and once summer break started I wanted to get another chapter for YY out, but that one has been fighting me tooth and nail. So if anyone's reading this one, here's another chapter.**

Skyfire was going to upgrade to his fourth frame soon and it was time for him to choose a path in life. Ever since getting back from her last assignment, Rainhaven had been making all the preparations needed for Skyfire to become an interstellar transport. Basically all Skyfire had to do was sign the papers saying, 'yes this is what I want to do' and he was good to go.

Despite having shadowed his carrier through most of his time as a third frame, Skyfire was going to have to choose someone to briefly apprentice under in order to satisfy many planet's laws. Rainhaven hadn't touched that paperwork yet. Part of her wanted her creation nearby as long as possible, but at the same time, someone else might be able to teach him something Rainhaven wouldn't be able to. So she would leave that part completely up to Skyfire.

"I don't think I want to become an interstellar transport." Rainhaven stopped preparing their engergon, caught completely off guard by the statement. She thought Skyfire loved coming along with her. Traveling to distant planets, meeting all kinds of creatures; mechanical and otherwise. They'd been going on these trips together for hundreds of vorns and not once had there been any indication that Skyfire had been unhappy. Sure Skyfire missed Starscream, but it seemed to have been getting better. Looking over, Skyfire was sitting ridged and fingering one of his beloved science datapads. Oh how Rainhaven hated those things; filling Skyfire's processor with dreams that plain and simply couldn't come true. Despite Rainhaven's effort to prevent Skyfire from collecting more, it felt like he was always reading a new one.

"What do you mean? I thought you loved coming with me on missions."

"I do, but that's not what I want to do for the rest of my life." Already knowing where this conversation was going, Rainhaven tried to steer it away from what she was dreading.

Rainhaven wanted to be supportive. Partial spark or not Rainhaven knew Skyfire deserved better than what Rainhaven had given him over the vorns. Primus knew Starscream certainly deserved better than his Sires had given him. And Rainhaven tried her hardest to make up for that. But it felt impossible to be supportive of something she just knew would end in disaster.

"That's fine. Would you rather be a transport for a specific city or were you thinking of going all over Cybertron?"

"I don't want to be a transport at all." Rainhaven wished she could be genuinely confused. Even still, she held on to that beyond rational hope.

"There aren't exactly a lot of other choices for us shuttle class, but I'm sure I can find a high council approved list somewhere. We'll look through it together and you can pick something you think you'll like out." White servos gripped the datapad tightly. Rainhaven wasn't even sure what it was about, all those datapads were gibberish to her. But she knew she was about to hear the sentence she'd been dreading since some anti-caste idiot at a rest station had handed Skyfire a chemistry datapad.

"I want to be a scientist."

"I don't think that's going to be on their approved list sweetspark. Besides, scientist is such a vague, broad term. What would you even do as a scientist? What kind of scientist would you be? You have to think about these things before you go leaping with broken thrusters."

"I have thought about it. A lot. I've already taken the entrance exam for Iacon's science academy. I took to Vos' as well in case Iacon doesn't let me in purely on principal of being a flight frame." Rainhaven must have looked as distraught as she felt because Skyfire took one look at her and his determined edge softened. "I'm sorry Carrier, I know you worry about me. I promise that if I don't get into either school I'll become an interstellar transport." Skyfire let Rainhaven pull him into an embrace.

"You chose quite the difficult path."

"I know Carrier."

"You can always come back. Whether it's permanently, or just for a break you'll always have a home with me."

"I know."

XoXoXoX

Vos's acceptance letters lay to the side already opened. They'd both gotten in with close to full rides. As expected. In each of their servos was a slim datapad that contained Iacon's verdict. Just because they were both smart enough to get in didn't mean they would and they were nervous.

They onlined the datapads and began reading at the same time. Excitement clashed with disappointment over their bond.

"You didn't get in?" The two met optics over the vidscreen and Starscream stifled a scoff.

"My letter says that because of proportion attendance policies only a select amount of flight frames are accepted every deca-orn and that that limit has already been reached. If one of the accepted flight frames drop before the first term begins I'll be contacted. If not I am legally allowed to try again next deca-orn." Something skittered across Skyfire's portion of their spark and Starscream ruthlessly crushed it before it could become an actual thought. "You are _not_ backing out for my sake." Skyfire's optics flickered in confliction and Strscream cut him off before he could start. "I'll go to Vos's science academy for a deca-orn and join you after. If you back out they'll have a legitimate excuse not to let you in next time." Skyfire had no argument for that, nodding and reluctantly backing down.

XoXoXoX

To say Skyfire was frustrated with his lab partners wouldn't quite be enough. Even his never ending patience seemed to be stretching thin. He had requested a new partner multiple times. Because he was able to give viable reasoning, his professors would concede to his request; by giving him someone worse to work with. He had stopped asking for fear of what his next partner would be like. His current partner really needed to think about other career options. Every experiment they did they had to do several times unless he wanted to do it on his own. He could feel his wings droop in resignation as the mech mixed the same wrong chemicals together for the second time.

Every time the mech did something like this he was reminded of the fact that many ground frames like this one were chosen over Starscream. Not because they were smarter, or had more potential, but because political connections and the rules on 'proportional frame attendance.' Skyfire understood that there would be more grounders than fliers but even he couldn't pretend only allowing one flier every decavorn was fair.

Any credits Starscream earned in the decavorn between entrance exams wouldn't transfer, as Vos's Science Academy wasn't under Cybertron's Science Council, but at least he was still learning and that would make the entrance exams that much easier for him.

Without even bothering to have his partner stop the experiment, he wouldn't listen to Skyfire anyways, he began to set it up again on another bench. He really should have paid more attention though as, before he could finish, an explosion ripped through the lab.

He onlined to Starscream yelling. Wait, no. That couldn't be right. Starscream was in Vos. But he was close enough he could stretch out his piece of spark to wrap part of it around Skyfire's own. Skyfire sent a soothing pulse. He didn't know why Starscream was agitated, but it was always better to calm him down as quickly as possible. The all-encompassing awareness they had of each other while touching sparks gave Skyfire a good view of the wide slew of emotions Starscream felt when he realized Skyfire was awake, fragmented memories quickly following. Talking with Acidstorm before pain and Skyfire was in stasis what happened, he got there as quickly as he could but they wouldn't let him through, he was screaming something and suddenly they took him straight to Skyfire but he was—

That's right, the explosion. Starscream's piece of their spark pulled away, breaking contact just long enough to contain his memories before coming back and wrapping as much as he didn't need for his frame tightly around Skyfire's piece of their spark. It was a strange feeling, but one Skyfire found comfort in. He wondered if other twins experienced this or if Starscream's spark was that unique.

He onlined his optics to a medical room, obviously designed for a couple of grounders, but that worked as a single for him. The one Starscream had been yelling at was a grounder nurse. The poor nurse looked extremely nervous and frustrated. Probably from dealing with Starscream.

Starscream was sitting as close as possible without actually sitting on him and had a servo on his chest plates above his sparkchamber. Starscream dismissed the nurse much more rudely than Skyfire would like, but he knew that Starscream's original dismissal would have made it look rather polite.

There was no need for speech when their spark was touching like this. Starscream showed him the damage the explosion did to his frame, comming their medics, the campus's grounder medics having trouble with a flight frame, their medics arriving, the medics informing him that Skyfire's reinforced armor meant for atmospheric exit and reentry is the only reason he survived, the horrible feeling of almost loosing him, of feeling him slipping away, but holding tight and _not letting go_ , the feeling of sheer and utter relief when he was in the clear.

"You are not allowed to accept partners I have not Okayed." It's not like he wanted any of the partners the closedminded professors gave him. He was pretty sure he could get by without one. Starscream saw his acceptance and was satisfied.

One of their medics walked in and gave Starscream a list of things Skyfire could and couldn't do, as well as a long lecture on not letting him overdo anything, likely knowing Starscream would be taking care of him till he was one hundred percent recovered.

The academy gave Skyfire two orns off to rest and recuperate. Rainhaven had insisted they spend that time with her in Altihex. Starscream made sure to see to Skyfire's every need during that time, not allowing him to do any work.

The visitor chime sounded and before Skyfire could so much as twitch, Starscream leapt up from where he'd been pretending to read; in actuality watching Skyfire closely. It ended up being Soundwave, who visited often after hearing of Skyfire's accident, helping take care of him and giving him more company.

Starscream had been allowed a little leeway due to the family emergency, but he still had a decent amount of work he had to turn in remotely. He would cautiously slip away to work on it when Soundwave was over, checking on Skyfire constantly over the bond. The lack of any of the accepting hostility Starscream reserved specially for Soundwave spoke volumes of how badly Starscream was shaken by the accident and Skyfire let him dote. He'd had Soundwave help him slip away once, but the guilt over how much he'd made Starscream worry hadn't been worth it. When the two orns were up he tried to convince Skyfire to come back to Vos with him. They could just go to Vos's Science academy together.

"I don't like the idea of being so far apart."

"I've gone on transport jobs with Carrier that have taken me much farther from Vos than Iacon."

"Yes but, nothing ever happened then."

And so, Skyfire made a medical appointment for the two of them. They had a few chips and programs installed that allowed them to see the others stats in real time. After the surgery, Starscream pulled up Skyfire's status, meticulously looking over each of his various system reports, and finally relaxed.

XoXoXoX

Thundercracker grunted in annoyance when Skywarp very suddenly began grabbing for his attention over the trine bond. Skywarp was positively radiating shock and happiness. Admittedly a little curious as to what had gotten him so excited he followed Skywarp's line of sight, and understood. He saw a little white, red, and light blue seeker strolling at a leisurely pace by some small shops. Just looking at him caused something to curl in his spark, that same something he'd felt the first time he'd met Skywarp. They'd actually found their third. There was an echo to it that he hadn't felt with Skywarp, but that could be any number of things.

When they upgraded to their third frames they were resigned to the fact that they weren't going to find their trine leader, but there he was. He was still a fourth frame, which made him a little younger than them, but that didn't really matter. Positively giddy they flew over to introduce themselves.

Skywarp approached him first

"And where have you been all our lives?" They expected him to be surprised and ecstatic, after all, they had each other but he had been alone. Instead, when the seeker turned around there was a moment of shock, but it was quickly covered by contempt. Giving them each a look that could peel paint he asked,

"What do you want?" They looked at him in surprise. How could he not feel it?

"Um… to meet our third. I'm Skywarp and this is Thundercracker. You are…?"

"None of your business. Go find your third somewhere else." And with that the mech flew off.

"Hey TC?"

"Yeah?"

"You felt that too right? That _was_ our third?"

"Yeah."

"Ok… What just happened?"

XoXoXoX

"Your trine is stalking you again." Acidstorm just managed to keep his amusement out his voice and his face neutral.

"They're _not_ my trine."

"Alright, your _intended_ trine is stalking you again."

"Wipe that smile off your face before I do."

"I'm not smiling."

"But you want to be."

"True. But through great effort I'm restraining myself, to prevent any emotional harm that may come to his loftiness by my inconsiderate nature."

Starscream shoved Acidstorm playfully. Playful for Starscream anyways, Acidstorm took a few staggered steps to the side despite being bigger.

"So, what are you going to do about your intended trine this time? We don't have class till later, so you don't need to give them the slip. You publicly insulted and screamed at them last time and it's not like you to do the same thing twice in a row. I doubt they're going to corner you again after what you did to them last time they did that. That still leaves so many choices though."

"I just need to make it clear that my answer is no."

"Yeah, I don't know how much clearer you can be than repeatedly screaming at them that you don't want a trine and never will; interspersed with your personal brand of creative insults."

Starscream muttered something too low for Acidstorm to hear. He scowled at the pathway even as a servo came up to rub at the chest plating above his spark. Acidstorm's previous playfulness evaporated into concern. He'd been doing that more and more often lately.

"Just because mechs have had their sibling bonds dissipate when bonding to their trine doesn't mean they're guaranteed to. Novastorm kept his bond with his sister when Ionstorm and I bonded with him. The two of you are so close; I can't see accepting your trine even weakening the bond you have with Skyfire."

Starscream's face closed off in a way that told Acidstorm he'd already gone too far.

"If I wanted facts I already knew I would ask for them." Starscream spat, before flying off at a speed few could ever hope to match. Acidstorm glanced back at where Starscream's intended trine was 'hiding.' Rejecting one's trine couldn't be good for his spark, or the rest of the trine's for that matter. Maybe he'd just drop a hint about Skyfire. If they were as desperate as he thought they were they'd do something with the information.

XoXoXoX

After that first sighting they had a lot of trouble finding the tri-colored seeker again. Hotlink and Bitstream, another pair that had never found their trine leader and that because of that they'd become close friends with at the social center, had helped find what they could on their third. The two big things they started with were that his name was Starscream and he went to the Vosian Science Acadamy. Once they figured that out it wasn't too hard to stalk him. Or so they though until he'd given them the slip. Their friends all assured them he was probably just in denial, so they'd tried cornering him, just long enough to convince him they were trine. It was that encounter during which they learned he had physical skills to back up that sharp glossia of his. Almost a full vorn of stalking the tri-colored mech later, and they had learned his designation, where he lived, where he went to school, the few mecha he seemed to be friends with, and yet they still didn't know why he was rejecting them so vehemently. They had tried approaching Starscream's friends for help but they basically told the duo they weren't going to interfere. Starscream's closest friend had admitted that he was probably afraid for Skyfire. Looking the designation up in the citizens registry revealed nothing, but Bitstream was able to find some things on him.

Bitstream mentioned that there were some things about Skyfire and Starscream's medical records that looked funny, but that they were real. According to the records Skyfire was sparked here in Vos, but was registered as a citizen of Alithex, where he grew up. They stated Skyfire was Starscream's older sibling, but only by a few scant orns. Their working theory is that because Starscream never found them he became extremely close to Skyfire. The echo is his unusually strong bond with his sibling and he's rejecting them because he's afraid of becoming distant. It didn't quite fit, but it was the best they could think of.

That was why Skywarp broke into Starscream's apartment, to see if he could figure out any clues as to why Starscream kept rejecting them. Starscream wasn't living with his caretakers anymore, which TC said meant he was independent. There wasn't a lot beyond basic necessities; there were a couple holovids, an indoor crystal, a few other knick-knacks, and an image capture of what was probably his family. There was a trine, a shuttle, and two first frames practically glued together. Skywarp moved into the mech's bedroom. There was another image capture in here. It was a decent size, and the display border was nicer than he would have though the mech would spend based on the lack of other frivolous items in the house. It was of Skyfire, but was a much more flattering image than the one attached to his citizens registry file. Skywarp took out a data stick for a copy of the image as well as an image capture of it with the frame to show TC later.

The sound of the front door unlocking had Skywarp fumbling to put the stick in subspace and ducking into the closet. He could easily warp away, but that would make noise, and he'd rather the mech not know he was ever here. TC was already going to chew him out once he knew what Skywarp had done. His future trine leader exhaustedly came in, dropping datapads on his desk and leaving various other science-y looking things around the room. Skywarp was about to warp away anyways as Starscream reached for the closet. He was saved from having to do so when the visitor chime sounded. Starscream frowned in that direction for a moment before perking up with a muttered 'Sky?' and running for the door.

When the Starscream's best friend had mentioned 'Skyfire,' using the Vosian word sky instead of the Vosian prefix sky, Skywarp and Thundercracker had assumed the green seeker had been making fun of them and had looked the mech up simply because that was their only clue.

While the prefix 'Sky,' referring to specific spatial indicators and/or abilities with movement connotations, such as in his own designation, was rather common, Skywarp had never heard of another mecha to have the Vosian word for sky as a prefix, referring to the actual sky all fliers longed for with connotations of mother road and home; so while it was possible others with the word sky in their name existed, there was very little doubt about who was visiting.

Skywarp could hear happy shouting from the other room. As they came closer again he was able to make out the words.

"…have told me you were coming!"

"I was concerned for you." Skywarp recorded the two for Thundercracker's benefit later. "And the fact that you didn't know concerns me even more." He wished they would actually come in the bedroom so he could see them. "What's going on Star?"

"You know how school can be."

"Yes, and I know that's not what's going on. You've been scared of and angry with and paranoid about something for almost a vorn now. You've been so stressed and the fact that you won't tell me what's wrong worries me!"

"It's nothing you need to worry about."

"I can feel whatever it is negatively affecting your spark. Obviously I do need to worry about it." There was a long pause.

"I don't want you to worry about it. Besides, just a little bit longer before the next set of entrance exams and then I'll be in Iacon with you while the problem stays here."

"…Promise you'd tell me if there was something I could do about it?"

"Promise." There was the sound of shifting and they headed away again. "It's been a while since you've come to Vos, why don't we go…" Skywarp was pretty sure he had enough for TC to analyze. He warped to their shared bedroom, not even eliciting a little jump out of TC.

"Do I want to know where you've been?"

"I broke into Starscream's apartment. There wasn't much more I was able to get on him but maybe you could figure something out with these." He sent the image captures he'd taken of Starscream's apartment.

"You broke into his home?!"

"Well, yeah. I wanna be a complete trine and he's being really difficult about it!"

"That doesn't mean you can just break into his home."

"But I found important stuff." Across the bond he could feel the emotional battle of Thundercracker wanting to yell at him for breaking into the mech's house and congratulating him for finding so much out. Skywarp played the conversation he'd overheard while Thundercracker looked through the image captures.

"I think we need to talk to Skyfire if we really want to figure out what's going on." But the next cycle he was gone again, probably back to Iacon. Determined to talk with him they left for Iacon's Science Academy, where Bitstream had informed them he was attending.

XoXoXoX

Finding a shuttle frame in the heart of Iacon was very easy. They were quickly pointed in the direction of a public garden where they found him sitting on a bench reading a datapad.

Looking at the shuttle they were shocked to feel what could only be described as an inverse of how they felt when they saw Starscream. That strange echo they felt with Starscream was now at the forefront and they felt a disorienting echo of trine. The shuttle looked up, shock crossing his features. One of his servos came up as if to touch the plating above his spark. Skywarp and Thundercracker looked at each other for a moment, as if to confirm they were both feeling it. Looking back at the empty bench—

…Where was the shuttle?

They quickly moved to find him, one grounder helpfully informing them that he had flown as fast as campus rules allowed back to the dormitory.

"TC, are we sure they're siblings? 'Cause I think he's our trine's sparkmate. Like, future bonded sparkmate."

"I've never heard of mecha knowing when they've found their sparkmate like they do when they find their trine. Besides, Bitstream found the medical records." But he couldn't think of anything else it might be. Frustrated and confused, but forced to admit defeat, they went home.

Walking in, the lights automatically turned on, sensing their presence. Fear bloomed when this revealed Starscream, lounging in one of their dining chairs like he owned the place and drinking energon from one of their decorative crystal cubes.

"Oh, good. You're back." Starscream put the glass down and stood like a predator, livid anger showing through the casual façade. "I recognize the inevitability of you disrupting my life, but if you think I'm just going to sit around and do nothing while you harass Skyfire, you have another thing coming."

Thundercracker had finally had enough.

"We weren't harassing him! We finally found you, our third, only for you to completely and totally reject us for absolutely no reason! You admit that you feel it too when you scream at us that you don't want a trine. No one can help who their trine is. I don't understand why you're so against this. We went to him hoping for answers because you don't seem very inclined to give them! Why don't you want us as your trine? And don't tell me that you don't want one at all because that's not natural. I know there's a better reason." Despite being the smallest in the room Starscream lunged forwards and managed to pin Thundercracker to the wall by his neck.

"Maybe I'm not natural." He hissed. "This is your only warning. Leave Skyfire alone or I will make your lives miserable." And with that he swept out of their domicile. Skywarp helped Thundercracker up before grabbing the envelope Starscream had left on the table. In it was a hand written note, 'next time you break into someone's home, don't leave personal belongings where they'll find them' and Skywarp's home keycard. Something he never used due to his warping abilities.

"Opps?"

Thundercracker dropped heavily into one of the chairs.

"We're not just giving up right?"

Thundercracker mentally catalogued what they knew.

Starscream was their third. He had some kind of unusually strong attachment to Skyfire, who was supposedly his sibling. The two of them had some kind of connection to Skyfire as well. He might be their intended bonded, maybe, probably not because that would be really awkward where Starscream was concerned. As silly as it sounded, it wasn't that strange when you kept in mind that that was how trines found each other, but still.

"I think we need to give talking with Skyfire another try."

"Not that I mind, but Starscream _just_ threatened us to leave him alone, like, or else."

"I know, but I don't think we're going to get through to Starscream. We need to figure out why he doesn't want a trine, and the only one that's going to able to answer that is Skyfire."

 **A/N: Yay? I hope? No? I have no idea? Oh, ok. Bye.**


	5. Handling Trines

**A/N: Anyone care for another chapter? The first section happens before the last section of the previous chapter. Hope you've all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!**

The first time Skyfire felt a strong echo of _something_ down the bond he had been rightfully worried for Starscream. He pulled up Starscream's stats immediately, but they didn't show anything wrong. Skyfire commed him and Starscream told him it was nothing. Skyfire insisted it wasn't nothing and Starscream said he didn't think it would happen again.

It did happen again. And again and again, combined with increasing frustration, paranoia, and stress. Whatever it was was negatively affecting his piece of their spark. But Starscream refused to reveal what it was.

After seeing the two seekers in the garden Skyfire knew _exactly_ what Starscream had been worrying over for the past vorn. The echoes he had been feeling down their bond all this time were Starscream's piece of their spark telling him he'd found his trine. Skyfire had felt something in his own spark when he saw them, though it really didn't align with what their sires had described, or with what Starscream had been feeling. Starscream had felt an echo of it down their bond and was positively howling that Skyfire let him know what happened. He put enough of a block on their bond to keep him out and ignored Starscream's insistent comming until he was in his dorm room.

Skyfire moved to his room's vid chat terminal and called Starscream. He answered immediately.

"What happened? Why wouldn't you answer my coms? Are you ok?"

"You found your trine and you're avoiding them." Starscream flinched away from the screen.

"I don't need them, they're only going to try and take me away from you!"

"Obviously you do need them. I can feel the effect denying them is having on your spark." Skyfire pressed on, not wanting to hear his excuses. "They approached me in the garden by the main academic building. I didn't speak with them, but they seem nice enough. You need to talk to them." He moved to end the call but Starscream spoke first.

"We share the same spark. You know we can't bond to an outside spark without the other. It wouldn't matter if I spoke with them. And even if I could bond with someone without you, I wouldn't. Which again, you already know." Skyfire refused to meet his gaze and he backed down a bit. "I promise I'll have a talk with them as soon as they get back." Skyfire gave an acknowledgment and cut off the vid feed. He felt guilty, knowing he was probably keeping Starscream from having a trine, but when Starscream began sending comfort and reassurance across their bond he closed it as much as sharing a spark allowed.

Denying his trine was hurting his spark more and more as time went on. Skyfire was essentially the reason Starscream was struggling and if everything progressed the same way it had been, would be the reason for his suffering. He wished he knew what to do.

XoXoXoX

Going to Bitstream for help again they found which dorm room Skyfire lived in and were able to warp straight inside while he was in class. They timed it so that they wouldn't have to wait very long and hid themselves where he wouldn't see them immediately upon entering. When he did, Skywarp warped between him and the door while Thundercracker moved between him and the window.

Skyfire looked panicked. Thundercracker brought his servos up and wings down in a placating gesture.

"I know this looks bad, but we just want to talk. We know we've only got one chance didn't want you bolting."

Skyfire slowly moved against one of the side walls so that he could see them both at the same time.

"Please, we need to know; why doesn't Starscream want us as trine? Do you know what we're feeling towards you? Why are you afraid of us? …er, beyond what we're doing right now."

Skyfire looked so scared and guilty and they felt pretty bad about what they were doing, but they needed to know. It was beginning to physically hurt when Starscream denied the two of them and they knew he felt it doubly so.

"I can't tell you."

"Why not!?"

Skyfire wouldn't say anything more; he just seemed to be waiting for something. Thundercracker was suddenly aware they might not have as much time as he thought they would. They had jammed any communications in the room with a device Hotlink had made for them to prevent him from calling security, but could it be possible his sibling bond with Starscream was strong enough for him to feel Skyfire's fear all the way in Vos. There was no doubt he'd be on his way over if this was the case. It took them a little over half a cycle to fly from Vos to Iacon. It would take someone built more for speed less time. More so if that mech pushed himself the entire way. They did have a few joors guaranteed to them though and Thundercracker was going to take advantage of that time.

"Look, we swear on each other's sparks that nothing you say leaves this room."

Skyfire hesitated, but gave stiff consent.

"I ran the other day out of panic and the realization that the echoes I've felt the past vorn were you. It upset me to know I was the reason Starscream's been in increasing pain."

That confirmed that they shared some kind of bond, but it didn't tell them what he had to do with Starscream denying them.

"You made it sound like you know why Starscream doesn't want us for a trine."

"Yes... It's not that he doesn't want you specifically. He's just been denying the idea of a trine in general. We–" If possible, his wings tensed further and he visibly collected herself before stating, "Neither of us are physically capable of bonding without the other."

Thundercracker and Skywarp shared a look. They felt like that statement was supposed to explain everything, but they couldn't think of a bond that would be exclusive enough to prevent one from bonding without the other. It was common knowledge that any single spark—

…That explained everything.

"You're spark split twins." He could see Skywarp stiffen in surprise and shock, mild alarm briefly spiking through their trine bond.

Thundercracker took a moment to reassess the situation. It was extremely disconcerting to think about a split spark, but they were only getting one chance at this.

Looking at Skyfire, Thundercracker felt guilt and anger rise in him. Skyfire's optics said he was resigned to receiving verbal abuse from them, while his frame said he was expecting physical abuse. Thundercracker could understand him expecting verbal abuse, there was no way he didn't know how poorly split sparks were viewed; but the way Skyfire held himself now showed he'd previously been physically abused for this fact.

This was their intended, what? Fourth? Bonded? It really didn't matter. What did matter was that according to his spark he needed to give this a chance. Skyfire and Starscream were apparently his and 'Warp's and forget what the rest of Cybertron thought about split sparks. Thundercracker stepped close. He gave a sweeping bow, keeping his wings respectful.

"I suppose we're lucky then, to have found both our third and our trine's intended bonded."

Skyfire sunk down to the floor in disbelief.

"You… But? We— Split sparks!"

Skywarp came over as well. "Apparently, you're our split sparks. I'm Skywarp and this is Thundercracker, TC for short."

"I'll admit that it's… not what we were expecting, but we'd have to be stupid to not at least give this a try."

"Yeah, though I guess you wouldn't be our trine's bonded, you'd be me and TC's bonded. Unless Starscream thinks that would be too awkward, then I guess we'd be a quatern or something. Though I guess that would be kinda weird too, since…"

Thundercracker would have normally long since cut off Skywarp's rambling, but the more he dug himself a verbal hole, the more Skyfire seemed to relax. Thundercracker could practically see the relief wash over him until he cut Skywarp off with a soft almost laugh.

"Thank you, I— _Thank you_. It's up to Starscream as much as it is me, so you'll have to convince him first. But assuming he agrees as well, I… I would love to give this a try." They stayed for a little while after that, trying to get to know him a little bit. Though, unwilling to face Starscream before he could calm down about the stunt they pulled, they left relatively quickly. Skyfire agreed to talk to Starscream for them before they headed back to Vos. Now that they knew what kind of battle they were fighting, they were confident they could win it.

XoXoXoX

Remembering what happened last time they went to see Skyfire and the fact that there was a distinct possibility Starscream would be out for their energon, they warped together straight into their shared bedroom. Cautiously checking their main living area they were relieved to see it empty. As it should be. He did leave the keycard here last time, and they had changed the locks just in case, but it was still nice to come back to a homicidal-seeker free home.

Thundercracker tiredly sat in one of their nicer chairs that had good wing support while Skywarp flopped himself down on the couch.

"Spark split twins."

"Yeah."

"That explains a lot, but, TC, _spark split twins._ "

"I heard." Honestly? The thought freaked him out, but he felt he'd handled the revelation pretty well. They sat there in silence for a while. There wasn't exactly much to say, they had the same mixed feelings about the situation.

"At least we know why Starscream's so protective of him. Pretty sure I'd be protective of someone if I literally shared my spark with them too." Skywarp gave a nervous look around. "You don't think he's going to go through with his threat, do you?"

"No." Thundercracker said as much to convince himself as anything else. "By the time we left Skyfire knew we meant well. Besides, he left your card here and we changed the locks. I doubt he's going to mess with us in our own home."

A few cycles later, Thundercracker onlined from recharge and found himself unable to cycle back down. He felt too much like they were being watched. Skywarp was in a light recharge next to him. Still, he was recharging and Thundercracker was not.

Deciding to grab a datapad he'd left in the main living room, Thundercracker left their shared berth. Grabbing the pad and stepping back into the bedroom he fully intended to rejoin Skywarp on the berth, except that he couldn't. Because there was a blade to his throat. Paranoia exists for a reason idiot.

Stiffening, Thundercracker let his specialized engine begin to rumble. It woke Skywarp who sat up in alarm. He froze though when the knife pressed down, light enough it did no damage, but firm enough to make a point.

There was a harsh laugh before Thundercracker was released. He quickly spun around even as Skywarp teleported to his side, but the mech easily danced out of their reach.

"What? I just wanted to talk."

"And you had to put a knife to my throat to do that?"

Starscream gave a dark smirk, anger flickering in his optics. "No." He played with the blade a bit. "That was to make you think about action versus intention next time you want to do something stupid."

They gave a wince. That was… fair. In a really vindictive kind of way.

The dark smirk grew dangerous. "Skyfire convinced me not to 'accidentally' offline you and hide your frames somewhere." He toyed with the knife a bit more, seeming to pout at the fact that he wasn't going to get to do that. "He's actually rather against things like that."

Starscream held their gazes for a moment before a much more amused smirk replaced the previous one and he began laughing.

"You're faces are even better than I'd hoped they'd be. You do realize I'm joking, right? Well, not about Sky being against things like that. Pacifist and all that." And just like that the tense, dangerous atmosphere was broken. He relaxed, slipping the knife into subspace."

Starscream sauntered over and splayed himself out on their berth. Lounging in the space the two had recently vacated; taking up far more space than someone that small really should be able to.

"Sky said that you knew about us and still wanted to work something out. So, here I am. Work something out."

Thundercracker checked his chronometer. They both had work in a few groons while Starscream didn't have class for another several joors. Either Starscream was spiting them and didn't want them to get any recharge or he was hoping to avoid this conversation. Probably both. There was a good chance that if they didn't have this conversation now, it would never happen.

Thundercracker sighed and resigned himself to the floor, Skywarp following his lead.

"If we're technically bonding to the same spark, it would make sense that it would be the same type of bond. We were thinking that this will most likely cause us to form a quatern."

"No, I don't think it will. Try again."

Thundercracker frowned at the flippant reply. "We could always take it as it comes and if necessary keep the bond between him and us a secret."

"Not a chance. People will know who he belongs to, and belongs to him in return."

"You could make a suggestion you know."

"I don't want to suggest anything."

"Because you want to make sure that we're actually serious about this. You've already got a scenario you want, and you can't think of any other you'd be ok with." Skywarp piped up. Starscream tensed, looking surprised and giving away the truth in those words. Skywarp may not be the smartest seeker around, but he was good at reading mecha.

Starscream sat up. His posture lost any dramatic flair and the uncomfortably thoughtful look he wore seemed more real than any other emotion he'd shown since coming in. Thundercracker got the feeling Starscream was finally really there; actually listening and taking part of the conversation; legitimately considering them as potential trinemates.

"My opinion on the situation? You only want him so you can have me and be a complete trine. How much do you even really know about either of us? I already know what's going to happen. We plan some way to make this work and bond. Then you try and push him away until you find a way to replace him in my life. Well guess what, I'm not letting that happen, no matter what my spark says."

Thundercracker thought carefully over his next words, knowing that however he responded was going to determine everything. Skywarp must have known the same thing, as when he began speaking his words were laced with honest sincerity.

"We want both of you."

Starscream gave a nasty sneer but Skywarp kept going before he could do anything else.

"We figure that trine always works out. Despite there being thousands of seekers and trines, you never hear anything about trines that hate each other. We're getting these feelings in our spark from both of you, and there must be a reason for that. Sure, the feeling we get from him is different, but it's actually really cool to think about maybe having an intended bonded."

Starscream sat there staring into Skywarp's optics. He looked like he believed Skywarp and thought himself a fool for doing so. He looked away.

"I'm not promising anything. But I'm willing to allow you to court Skyfire. I… want a trine, even if the two of you are far from my first pick. It sounds… nice. So, if I look at you and can believe you actually want him I —

…That's my suggestion."

"Then that's what we'll do."

"You aren't worried what mecha will think about your sibling being your trinemates' sparkmate?"

Starscream smirked again, though this one was more self-satisfactory than anything else.

"The only mecha whose opinions I remotely care about, or that even know I have a sibling, won't be surprised in the slightest."

XoXoXoX

"So, I haven't seen your big blue and purple stalkers in a while."

"Yeah, is there something you want to tell us?"

"You would tell us if you were finally part of a trine, right?"

Finals were just a few orns away and Starscream was supposed to be spending the cycle studying with Acid Storm. Not that they were getting any studying done, seeing as they made the poor choice of attempting to study at Acid Storm's place instead of literally anywhere else. Acid Storm's trinemates had taken that invitation to bother them into goofing off and hanging out all cycle instead.

"They're currently courting Skyfire."

None of them were surprised at that statement. In fact, if his howling laughter was anything to go by, Ionstorm found it down right hilarious. Novastorm was somewhat disturbed by the information, but that was probably because he had a sibling of his own and didn't like the idea of his sister being his trinemates' sparkmate. Acid Storm looked torn between amusement and light concern. But no, no surprise anywhere.

There was also the fact that, in any other circumstance, trines all take the same mate; which is probably what the mild concern in Acid Storm's optics was about; so he would cut Novastorm some slack.

"And how is that going?" Acid Strom had to wait until Ionstorm had quieted down some to ask the question.

"Relatively well. Skyfire genuinely likes them so far. Though I'm not sure he'd have realized he was being courted if I hadn't told him he was; oblivious idiot that he is and all." Starscream smiled at the fact he'd actually had to do that.

"No offence Starscream, but I'm more surprised that you actually told him than the fact that he couldn't figure it out on his own."

Starscream made a half-sparked rude gesture in Acid Storm's direction.

"So are you accepting your trine before or after the mating ceremony between your _trinemates_ and _sibling_?" Novastorm was definitely disturbed by the idea.

"After." And Starscream could care less, Novastorm would get over it.

Ionstorm was snickering again.

"How long have they been courting him now?"

"Since shortly after you gave them Skyfire's designation." Starscream gave Acid Storm a sideways look. Acid Storm merely raised an optic ridge in a cross between 'who me?' and 'you should be thanking me, not accusing me.'

"Not that I want you to keep ignoring them, but you're not worried about them courting him just to get your attention?"

"I made sure they weren't. And have been keeping a close optic on them since."

"Hey," Ionstorm butted in, "we're invited to the ceremony, right?"

Starscream gave an overly dramatic cycle of air.

"You'll end up coming either way, so I guess it would be better to just save everyone the trouble and invite you."

"Oh, please. Skyfire would be disappointed if we didn't show up."

"True, though that means you'd better be there."

"They haven't already asked him have they?" Oh, good. Novastorm was already coming to terms that yes, this was in fact actually happening.

"No, but they've asked for Rainhaven's as well as my permission to ask him, so I imagine it'll be soon."

"You just have to have everything your way, don't you?"

Starscream gave a sickly sweet smile. "And why shouldn't I get my way?"

 **A/N: I have nothing to say and am literally just bookending my chapter. Because I do that.**


	6. Forming Bonds

**A/N: Hi, hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and new year! I'm feeling kinda sappy at the moment and want to thank everyone who's favorited, and followed, with a special thanks to the pair who have reviewed. I write this because it's fun, but that's immensely helped along by knowing that there are people that not only read my work, but enjoy it.**

 **Seriously though, Flightstrike and Anodythe, I read those every now and then when I doubt my writing too much and would send you literal cookies if I could.**

Skyfire landed on the balcony of a lower to midlevel apartment, knocking on the transperristeel door. Had he been visiting any other grounder Skyfire would have gone to the front door, but not only were the hallways a bit smaller than his natural flier claustrophobia would like, but this grounder was honestly expecting him to come via the balcony. Skyfire was actually the main reason the mech had opted to spend the little bit extra to get it.

The door to the balcony opened to a dark blue mech that was large for a grounder. Skyfire beamed at the mech, giving him a very brief hug. The mech allowed it despite not being an overly touchy type, knowing Skyfire was as tactile as he wasn't.

"Hello Soundwave."

Soundwave 'smiled' back at Skyfire using his field, turning and motioning Skyfire to come inside.

"Skyfire: Welcome." The long vorns of friendship allowed Skyfire to hear the warmth in his near monotone voice.

Skyfire stepped into the living room where a grey mech who was very large for a grounder sat on the couch. The mech stood at his entrance. Soundwave introduced the mech as Megatronous and introduced Skyfire to the mech in turn.

Starscream didn't like that Skyfire had travelled alone to Kaon, what with its shady reputation. Starscream usually came with him or insisted they meet somewhere between Kaon and Iacon, but the other guest would not have been able to leave the city state and this was important enough to Soundwave that Skyfire had put his ped down.

Soundwave was onlining his first symbiot pair and as was heavily set in host frame tradition his two caretakers had been there for the forming of the little ones' sparks and frames but would leave and the two mecha he was otherwise closest to would be there for the onlining of them. Usually this would be two more host mecha, often the host's bonded, sibling, or sparkling if they had any, and Skyfire felt honored that Soundwave would want him here for this. Megartonous seemed to be similarly honored, though it was somewhat hard to tell.

Soundwave summarized what was going to happen and what he needed each of them to do to help. He then brought them to the pre-prepared area where he laid out small beast frames and containment units holding even smaller sparks. Taking up their positions, the three of them easily placed the little sparks in their new chambers.

The symbiots onlined and immediately locked optics with Soundwave. They stared at each other while Soundwave ran diagnostics and ensured everything was in working order. When that was done, one of the newly onlined symbiots looked at Megatronous, while the other looked at Skyfire, for several long moments; seeming to memorize each of them by frame and field. They did switch, but it was noticeably briefer. Skyfire knew, despite Soundwave not having mentioned anything of the sort, that this was the important part. Exactly why it was important was a closely guarded secret among hosts and symbiots, but even not knowing entirely why, Skyfire and Megatronous held still with their fields open for the newly onlined symbiots.

Soundwave motioned them towards the symbiots. Megatronous hesitated as Soundwave had not mentioned anything beyond it onlining, but Skyfire crouched as low as he could and softly asked,  
"And what are your names little ones?"

It took the symbiots a moment to respond, but they did focus on Skyfire, and the one that had studied him answered in a matching tone and volume, "Glit." The other continued to stare at him, glancing at Megatronous before answering, "Ravage."

Megatronous barked a laugh. "A fierce and fitting designation for the first of yours, my friend." He put one of his strong servos that looked like it had seen a lot of hard work on Soundwave's shoulder. "Thank you for this, but I must go. I've likely already been missed."

Soundwave nodded; grateful his friend had been willing to spare as much time as he had.

"Request: Come back soon."

Megatronous gave Soundwave a smirk and Skyfire was hit by the unshakable knowledge that should they ever meet, Megatronous and Starscream would either be best friends or worst enemies. Probably both.

"Of course. Mind if I bring Impactor next time?"

Soundwave shook his helm and that seemed to be that. Megatronous gave a polite nod to Skyfire and was gone.

Soundwave turned to Skyfire after a moment, as shy as Soundwave ever got.

"Query: Skyfire has time to stay and chat."

Skyfire glanced at the newly onlined symbiots, not sure if Soundwave would want him to stay or if he'd want to spend time with them. Surely it would be best for Glit and Ravage to have some alone time with Soundwave.

"Amendment: Skyfire is welcome to stay and chat. Soundwave: Would love to catch up. Also, would be good for Ravage; Glit especially so."

Skyfire smiled warmly at Soundwave, teasing, "Telepathic cheat." before moving to the living room to chat more comfortably.

Skyfire had learned of Soundwave's telepathic abilities while they were still third frames, when Soundwave had used said abilities and learned Skyfire and Starscream were twins. Soundwave had summarily flipped out, which for him had basically amounted to a strangled sounding 'oh', but after he'd calmed down he had been more accepting than anyone else before or since, admitting to his own ability as a sign of trust and apology. Soundwave saw Skyfire's easy acceptance for him to use his abilities on Skyfire within reason, and that was the moment they had both realized this was a lifelong friendship. Megatronous was Soundwave's best friend, and he always would be, but Skyfire was the friend he could tell everything to, that he kept no personal secrets from and he knew would keep no personal secrets from him.

Soundwave sat on the couch while Skyfire took a seat cross-legged on the floor opposite him. Ravage and Glit jumped up onto Skyfire's thigh plating and made themselves comfortable. Skyfire looked over at Soundwave to make sure this was ok. Soundwave looked pleased at this more than anything so Skyfire relaxed.

"Well, I guess the biggest thing on my end would be these two seekers Starscream and I met…"

XoXoXoX

When Skywarp noticed just who was behind the desk at the visitor's gate for the Iacon Science Academy he warped right up to the gate, eliciting a jump out of the poor guard. The guard didn't bother hiding his grimace and Skywarp flicked his wings back in a somewhat rude gesture, a Cheshire like grin on his face. The guard didn't have any idea how to read wings but he knew by now to be offended at the gesture. The guard's servo hovered over the button that would summon mecha to ensure Skywarp stayed well off the premises, hopeful that Skywarp would trespass so he could.

Unfortunatly for him, Skywarp stayed on the correct side of the gate, leering at him.

"Hey Grounder! And how are you this fine cycle?" Said grounder's servo twitched over the button.

"Seeker. It was better a few klicks ago." The servo not hovering hopefully over the security button reached over and followed a grudgingly memorized pattern to send a ping to Skyfire's com. letting him know he had visitors.

Skyfire didn't take that long to arrive, though Skywarp still used his time wisely; by making increasingly immature faces at the guard until Starscream nudged him, just before Skyfire came into sight.

Skyfire came over, after patiently waiting for the gates to open for him, and excitedly embraced Starscream first, before giving Thundercracker and Skywarp each a casually affectionate helm to helm tap. He looked down at the moderate sized portable storage unit that the future trine had brought.

"Is that everything?"

Skywarp was pretty sure Starscream's usual smirk grew a fraction at the question, but they must have used their bond to communicate as Skyfire said, "Great! Let's get started." before Starscream gave any other discernable answer.

The guard looked the three seekers over.

"You know the rules; each student is allowed _one_ visitor at a time."

"Oh, sorry!" Skyfire turned back to the guard, handing the guard his school ID for scanning and getting a visitor's pass. The guard raised an optic ridge when the pass was given to Thundercracker instead of Starscream as it usually was.

A glance at Starscream had the guard straightening up some over the expression on the mech's face. Smug was a bit of an understatement. Starscream strode forwards and slammed his new ID onto the desk with far more force than necessary.

"I told you I'd be a student here someday, and one of the greatest students this school has ever seen! And as a student here, I'd like to bring a visitor on the premises." The guard's gaze slowly moved over to Skywarp, who gave a far too cheerful wave, before just as slowly taking the card, handling it as if it were going to bite him. He warily scanned the card, looking extremely displeased when it went through and Starscream's information popped up.

He scanned it a few more times to make sure he wasn't seeing things, and then to make sure it wasn't a glitch in the system. Grabbing another visitor's card, he leveled a mild glare at Starscream who snatched the card and his ID back.

The four of them headed in, Starscream cackling madly all the way.

XoXoXoX

It was no surprise when Thundercrakcer and Skywarp asked Skyfire to be their bonded, and even less surprise when he said yes. All four of them were currently planning the official ceremony that recognized legalities for when mecha took sparkmates. Starscream wanted a large over the top ceremony, but he was outvoted, and in the end they had decided to do something small and intimate.

Skyfire stepped out for a moment to grab a few energon cubes while Thundercracker took a look at the small guest list they'd compiled; a grand total of thirty one. For a ceremony that usually easily had a hundred or two in attendance it kinda seemed like a sad number, but the fact that only their closest friends and family would be there really did give it an extra air of intimacy. He paused on one of the designations in mild confusion.

"Soundwave? That sounds like a grounder designation."

"It is."

"Why is there a grounder on our list of closest friends and family?"

"I tend to think of him as the greatest indulgence I allow Skyfire. Don't outright insult him and Sky will be fine."

When Skyfire rejoined them with the energon, Thundercracker chose not to bring the grounder up.

XoXoXoX

Skywarp came out of recharge almost purring. Mentally stretching out he was easily able to find the new trine and mate bonds. The bond he now had with Starscream was different than the one he had with Thundercracker; connected oddly as it was to the mate bond he now had with Skyfire. If he distanced himself just so, and allowed his awareness of it to fade just right, it almost felt like one bond. As deep in his new bonds as he was, he felt it as Thundercracker onlined as well.

Smiling and onlining his optics, Skywarp would have said some kind of pleased greeting to Thundercracker, but was far too busy jumping up and screaming. That quickly brought the rest of them fully online. Or, so it felt. But Starscream's greyed out form, chestplates open to reveal an empty sparkchamber said otherwise. It look Thundercracker a moment longer to notice the frame, as focused on Skywarp as he was, but when he did he made a sharp noise of alarm, tensing with his wings held rigidly behind him. This finally drew Skyfire's attention to Starscream's frame.

There was a brief spike of alarm from both Skyfire and Starscream before a block flew up on the new bonds, so solid it was like they hadn't existed in the first place. Gold energy shot through Skyfire's chest plating, slamming into the empty chamber. In an instant Starscream had his chest closed and was sitting up, colors returning.

"I'm fine!" Starscream blurted. He and Skyfire both pressed into each other, Starscream bristling, Skyfire defensive, and both for all the world looking afraid of the two of them.

"You-" Thundercracker cut himself off with a strangled noise. Skywarp wasn't fairing much better, trying to calm himself enough to speak real Vosian instead of static. When the silence had stretched out too long Starscream gave a quiet scoff.

"I knew this would happen. Bonded for less than a cycle and they're already regretting it." It was unclear whether Starscream was murmuring to himself or to Skyfire, but in the stillness that lay between them, everyone heard it.

Skywarp felt guilty and tried to calm his franticly racing spark. Right. Twins. Of course they could share a frame. Why not? That didn't stop the revulsion that echoed back and forth between himself and Thundercracker, both of them _very_ uneasy with the knowledge that there had been an empty frame in their berth with them. He was glad for the block on the bond as it kept Starscream and Skyfire from feeling any of their conflicting emotions. That was probably why it had been put it up in the first place.

"We don't regret it. We're trying, and we're going to keep trying. But you can't fault us for getting… surprised, at something so… unexpected." Thundercracker had finally figured out how to use his vocalizer again. Skyfire relaxed a bit at that and gave them a grateful smile; though his unusually expressive wings clearly showed his sad resignation towards the situation.

"No, we can't." Skyfire's large servo easily smoothed down Starscream's ruffled armor. "And we thank you for wanting to understand." The block between the two pairs thinned and Skywarp had the strange experience of feeling Skyfire and Starscream communicating, far too fast and intricate to follow.

Despite being much more relaxed than a few moments ago Starscream couldn't help but put in one last jab of, "You will eventually."

Frustrated, and wanting this to work, Skywarp practically shouted,

"No we won't! We knew what we were getting into when we began courting Skyfire. We know we're going to encounter things we're uneasy with, but we're going to work past them. The least you could do is have a little patience with us while we do that ok?"

Starscream looked mildly taken aback, but thanks to the new bonds Skywarp knew he'd said the right thing. The Starscream/Skyfire bond fluttered with communication even as the one tethered to Starscream leveled out. Starscream scoffed, crossing his arms and looking away, pressing himself once more against Skyfire who gave a gentle smile and stroked one of Starscream's wings.

"What he means to say is thank you. You're right, we'll have a little more faith and patience with you."

Starscream smiled slightly and laid back down, pulling Skyfire with him. Thundercracker and Skywarp hesitated only a moment before rejoining them. The four way bond hummed with hesitant contentment and Skywarp found himself glad for the unconventional wake up. Hopefully this was another step in proving to Starscream that they really meant what they had said and that they wanted this.

 **A/N: I was looking up symbiots that weren't in G1 for something down the road and found Glit. There won't be many opportunities to butcher his character, but I'll try to get him right when I can regardless.**

 **So I wouldn't quite call it a new year's resolution, but I've got a couple of goals that are better than what I've been doing so far but are relatively easy so I don't fall behind and give up on them.**

 **The one that concerns you guys is that I'm going to have a minimum of a chapter out every other month. I was going to try for every month, but even excluding April where it won't be physically possible for me to post anything, every other being the obligation makes it less daunting.**


	7. Child of Mine

**A/N: Going to save most of what I have to say for after the chapter. I did exercise an area I know needs work, but it was necessary for the story and I really tried for you guys. Thank you** **LizzieFlynn200 for reviewing! It always makes me happy to know that someone is reading and enjoying this. :)  
**

 **Warnings for mentions of miscarriage and abortion.  
**

He was walking. Down a corridor. Thundercracker and Skywarp were just a step behind him on either side. Exactly where they should be. It took him a few moments to realize that he was headed for a large ornate door at the end. He knew without question that it would open for him.

He hadn't even walked halfway down the hall when he realized Skyfire wasn't there. It didn't even feel like Skyfire was elsewhere. Their connection wasn't strained. It didn't hurt. Skyfire just. wasn't. there. Panicked, Starscream turned to question Thundercracker or Skywarp where he could be. The corridor dissolved around him.

Starscream onlined with his processor feeling foggy. He tried to relax and fall back into recharge before Skyfire onlined, but the panic he'd felt at the end of his memory purge bought Skyfire online immediately.

Skyfire didn't speak, but did send a questioning pulse over the bond, running a servo along a wing to calm him.

"Sorry Sky." He murmured. "Don't even remember what memory it was. I think it was one of our Sires dragging us apart." He could remember a hall or something, and thought he could almost remember more, but instead grounded himself in the present; focusing on the long slow strokes to his wings and comforting closeness of Skyfire's spark piece until he fell back into recharge.

XoXoXoX

It started not that long after returning from a long break that the twins had spent in Vos. Skyfire and Starcream had been working in their shared lab when Skyfire just collapsed. Immediately concerned, Starscream was at his side in an instant. He kneeled down only to curse and stand right back up, heading for the small energon storage unit they kept just in case.

"How on Cybertron did your energy levels get so low? I made _sure_ you refueled at the beginning of the cycle! Ugh, I'd noticed your energon consumption was increasing while we were still in Vos; I should have made you go see our medics."

Skyfire said nothing as Starscream came back with a cube for him. He wanted to brush it off, but they really couldn't afford for his fuel consumption to increase like this. Not to mention that whatever was causing this had the potential to be rather dangerous to his health.

He sipped at the offered cube before answering, "It could be a simple virus that my systems just need a little extra fuel to fight. Hopefully it will work out of my systems soon. If it doesn't I promise I'll let you look over my coding."

Huffing, Starscream walked back to the project he'd been working on before Skyfire's collapse.

"I'm holding you to that."

XoXoXoX

After the first collapse Starscream didn't let Skyfire's energy level drop below thirty percent. That and he did a lot of hovering. Though, Skyfire would be putting up more of a fuss if he'd been a little less worried himself.

Any Cybertronian that left the planet was required to have the best, most up to date firewalls available to help prevent them from bringing foreign viruses back, and any mecha with an interstellar job was required to have as much medicinal knowledge as an entry to mid-level med student, simply to improve their chances of survival. Interstellar anything was dangerous.

Having shadowed Rainhaven for so long Skyfire's firewalls were well above average, and having gone above and beyond what was required, Skyfire probably could have made a decent medic with a bit more professional training. So the fact that he couldn't figure out what was wrong with himself was a bit worrying.

Skyfire onlined rather confused. He couldn't remember offlining or why he would have done so on the floor. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to remember why he'd decided his lab was a good place for a stasis nap.

Starscream walked into his line of sight, standing above his helm and bending over him with his servos on his hips and an impressive scowl on his face.

After a moment, Starscream crouched down, unspooling a cable from his wrist and plugging it in to one of the medical ports at the base of Skyfire's helm. Starscream immediately began combing through Skyfire's coding, only to be cut short as Skyfire threw up his impressive firewalls.

"Are you kidding me right now Sky?!" Starscream snarled. As good with code as Starscream was, he wasn't good enough to temporarily take such strong firewalls down and leave them in good enough condition that Skyfire would be able to put them back up when he was done. If a virus was what was wrong with Skyfire, shattered firewalls were not what he needed. "You _promised_ I could look your code over if this got any worse." He'd already be mostly done if Skyfire's firewalls didn't automatically lock into place while he was offline.

Skyfire winced and let the firewalls drop.

"I wish you'd ask first."

Starscream made a noncommittal grunt and continued scanning over Skyfire's code.

"Shouldn't you be in class now?" Skyfire double checked his chronometer to confirm that he had only been offline a handful of klicks and that the class Starscream had been in was still going on.

"It ended early." Meaning Starscream had left in the middle of the class, likely without explanation. Starscream finished looking over his code for the second time and started on the third. "I've called our medics. They're going to charge a bit more to travel all the way out to Iacon, and won't be able to come for a decacycle or so, but I figured that would be easier and faster than dragging your oversized frame away from your work to Vos; especially with how recently we were just there."

Skyfire held back a groan, but didn't protest. Healthy mecha did not spontaneously fall into light stasis at fourty three percent energy levels.

"I also told TC and 'Warp. They'll be here as soon as they can."

Skyfire didn't bother holding back his groan.

"They have jobs Starscream. You can't just pull them away for every little thing."

Having combed through Skyfire's coding a fifth time, Starscream roughly pulled out.

"This isn't little Sky! You should have gone to see the medics sooner."

Skyfire sat up and Starscream stood so they were at the same optic level.

"I'm sorry Star; I'll be careful and rest until the medics get here."

Starscream ran a servo down his face.

"Alright, but I'm staying with you to make sure you actually do!"

Skyfire smiled at Starscream.

"Deal." Skyfire said, scooping Starscream up as he stood. Starscream thrashed in his embrace a bit, crowing,

"This is _not_ resting you overgrown moron!"

XoXoXoX

Thundercracker and Skywarp made it to Iacon two cycles later and the medic the promised decacycle later. In the interim, Skyfire had only passed out one other time. Having again been while Starscream was in class, Starscream hadn't been overly inclined to be more than one room away from Skyfire at any given moment.

The trine waited outside the dorm room while the medic looked Skyfire over; Starscream glaring at any poor grounder that had to walk by. When dazed excitement spilled over the bonds the trine crowded around the door, eager to know what was going on. The medic beckoned them in a few moments later looking mildly troubled.

"It's no virus. That's for sure. An impossibility would be a more accurate term."

"Spit it out already!"

Long since used to Starscream's rude nature the medic shook his helm and answered,

"You're with spark. Er… he's with spark." The medic gave a disbelieving laugh. "That's the first time in a long time I've had to specify one of your spark halves."

There was a moment of completely silent disbelief, broken by Skywarp squealing in joy and tackling Skyfire in a hug.

Skyfire was not the type of mecha to want a lot, and was much more prone to showering his seekers with gifts in an attempt to spoil them. The few things he did want however, they tried their best to give him.

The most prominent of his desires from the cycle they bonded had been for a sparkling. The medics had repeatedly told them that despite Skyfire technically being a carrier spark, the partiality of it would negate that. The medic seemed the most shocked in the room, but as the four bonded excitedly embraced each other, he had to admit he was glad for them. Despite their split spark nature, it was hard not to get attached to mechs that had been your patient their whole life.

XoXoXoX

It was well into the carrying period when Skyfire had begun to show signs of true illness. The only saving grace was that it was over the Academy's two deca-orn long break the students were given every decavorn and the four of them were able to stay together in Vos.

Constant close proximity to Starscream had helped for a while, but it didn't take long before that wasn't enough either. Thundercracker and Skywarp had caught the twins sharing Skyfire's frame multiple times as Skyfire's condition worsened.

The medics were borderline frantic, giving them vague answers and prescribing strong pain blocks, but no real cure for the actual problem.

Skyfire and Starscream were supposed to have gone to the medics this cycle while Thundercracker and Skywarp were at work. As they hadn't really expected the twins to beat them home, coming home to Starscream's greyed out frame was an unpleasant surprise. They knew based off the bond that he was very much online, but still. It didn't help that Skyfire had been thoroughly blocking them since he'd begun feeling ill, and Starscream was keeping a block only thin enough to basically say yeah, we're alive.

The frame was propped up against the berthroom door, which was locked. Suppressing a shiver, Thundercracker stepped over it and knocked.

"Sky, Star, everything alright?" There was a long pause followed by a crackle of energy before Starscream's frame regained its colors.

"Not really." Starscream didn't bother elaborating. It was obvious from the fact that Skyfire had locked _Starscream_ out of the room that everything was extremely not alright, but they had been hoping he'd be willing to say what was wrong without having to drag it out of him; something that usually took Skyfire to accomplish.

"Well if he's feeling that down, we could always invite the grounder over." Skywarp said it half-jokingly, hoping to lighten the situation a little. Starscream's reply however was not the expected loud huffy half threats he generally gave whenever Soundwave was brought up, or the common dismissive crossing of his arms that could mean anything and only Skyfire knew what, he simply looked towards the door and quietly answered,

"That sounds like a good idea." moving away to do just that. It was at that moment that Skywarp and Thundercracker realized just how bad the situation was.

"Starscream, what did the medics say?"

"The short version? It's us or the sparkling."

That effectively stopped them in their tracks. That almost sounded like he was implying a potential miscarriage. Which, as everyone knew, was impossible. Miscarriages were tales the grounders made up to scare first time carrier sparks.

"That's not funny!"

"No, it isn't. It's actually rather depressing."

"What did the medics say? The long version."

Starscream stumbled just as Thundercracker and Skywarp felt a sharp stab of pain even through the blocks on the bonds. Starscream growled, but didn't make a move to close the distance between him and Skyfire or to keep walking.

"If one of you two morons would go call the ground pounding trash the glitched imbecile locked in the berthroom seems so fond of, that would be _fantastic._ " Starscream ground out. Another, sharper pain broke through the blocks, dissipating them somewhat. Thundercracker and Skywarp both curled in on themselves a bit at the sheer pain Skyfire was radiating even with the partial block up. No wonder Starscream had been so short tempered lately.

Starscream let out a curse at the second stab of pain, frame taking a step back towards the room before his spark piece forwent it and zipped through the wall. Thundercracker caught the frame by reflex, only to give a helm to ped shudder as he realized it was just the frame. He quickly propped it up against the wall again, turning away so he didn't have to see it.

"Go make a house call to their medics and then call the grounder. I'll try and talk to them."

Skywarp nodded and went so far as to teleport to the vid chat console. Thundercracker, left with the harder task by far, braced himself and knocked on the door.

"Sky? Star? Please, you've got us really worried. Can I come in?"

There was silence for several long moments, the only noises in the house being Skywarp's conversation down the hall. The blocks on the bonds had been left thinner and Thundercracker could feel the two arguing on a level deeper than two separate sparks would ever be able to. Eventually, the sound of the locking mechanism undoing greeted Thundercracker's audios.

Thundercracker cautiously opened the door. Skyfire was curled up miserably on the berth, gold flickering in through the blue of his optics. Thundercracker approached them quietly, softly laying a servo on one of Skyfire's wings.

'Starfire', as Skywarp had taken to calling the two of them when they shared a frame, was extremely unpredictable. There was no way to know which one of their personalities had how much control at any given point in time. The best indicator was how gold or blue their optics were, but it was still heavy guess work.

"Please," soft tones usually got the best results, "I know it hurts, and is obviously bad, but I need to know what the medics said."

Starfire's optics flickered madly back and forth between blue and gold as he clung to Thundercracker and broke down sobbing, "They're going to kill the sparkling. They want to kill us. I'd rather the sparkling survive than us. I don't _want_ to die! This is all my fault. It's all your fault!" Thundercracker was shoved to the floor at that last statement, only for their optics to smooth into that one particular shade of gold tinted blue that meant they'd achieved a healthy balance for the moment. The pain faded drastically as Starscream and Skyfire merged. Optics conveying deep regret, Starfire helped him back on the berth.

Starfire didn't cling and hover as Skyfire surely would have, nor did he avoid Thundercracker's optics and stay well out of his reach as Starscream would have. A large white servo rested gently on his shoulder; easily shakable if Thundercracker didn't want it, but a solid presence if he did.

"We're sorry. This is really hard for us. But, it's probably hard for you too." Starfire gave a broken laugh. "And now we've resorted to hitting you over it."

Thundercracker leaned into Starfire's touch. He imagined that this is what Starscream and Skyfire would have been like if they hadn't split.

"Ok, one, your optics were pure gold. Starscream's the one that pushed me; Skyfire had nothing to do with that. And two, I was well aware how emotionally unstable you were, if pushing me is the worst you ever do, I have nothing to worry about."

"Um, TC?"

Thundercracker and Starfire looked up at Skywarp, who was shuffling awkwardly in the doorway. He gave a little wave.

"Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt but I really wanted to come in and I thought that either way you should know that the medics said there wasn't anything else they could do until Sky and Star made their decision though they didn't say what that decision was but they did say that they told you earlier so you would know, also I told Soundwave emergency level stuff was wrong with Sky and the newspark and he said that he'd try and claim family emergency and be over when he could but that he'd need more information to really help but I didn't know more information and he said-"

Starfire gently cut Skywarp off, grabbing one of his servos and encouraging him towards the berth.

Once the three of them were settled, Starfire began to explain.

"The medics were right. The newspark is too much for part of my spark to carry. Even like this, Starscream technically has a siring spark. He can help Skyfire support the newspark, but it wouldn't be enough. If left as we were, the newspark would burn Skyfire's portion of our spark out and likely drag Starscream's with it.

We were told that it would be possible to spare our lives by getting rid of the newspark, but it's not ready to leave yet and pulling it away would kill it. The other option we were given would be to be put Skyfire in a modified stasis allowing the newspark to get the energy it needed until it was ready to be put in it's own frame, but that there wouldn't be enough energy left of his spark to pull him out of the stasis, leaving the medics no choice but to allow him to fade away; again, with Starscream likely following."

Silence reigned long enough for the light cast by the room's windows to crawl across the room.

"Would you think us monsters if we killed the sparkling?"

Skywarp remained silent, tucked up against Starfire's side. Thundercracker eventually found his vocalizer long enough to answer,

"No."

"Would you care for our sparkling if we chose to let it live?"

Thundercracker looked up at Starfire sharply. "Of course we would!"

"Would you resent us for leaving you with such a burden?"

Thundercracker sat up, grasping one of Skyfire's servos between his own. He couldn't bring himself to meet Starfire's optics, wasn't strong enough to keep the static out of his vocalizer, but with as much conviction as he could muster he said,

"Whatever you choose, Skywarp and I will still love you. If you choose to bless us with a sparkling, we will care for it with all of the love it deserves. If you choose your own lives, we will celebrate every extra nanoklick that we can spend with you beyond what we otherwise would have had."

Thundercracker forced himself to look up at Starfire's optics and for a moment was met with sparkbreaking confliction and awe, before the optics turned Skyfire blue and his face crumpled to an expression of agony.

"If only I was stronger, I-" Skyfire cut himself off with a cry of pain while blue and gold fought for dominance. Their fight extended to Skyfire's frame and he began to writhe, clawing at the plating over his sparkchamber. Thundercracker and Skywarp quickly pinned him down to keep him from hurting himself until there was a discharge of gold energy across Skyfire's frame and it shut down.

Over the bond, Skyfire's awareness of the world dimmed and he weakly threw hurt anger at Starscream, trying to keep from falling into stasis despite the fact that his frame already had. Thundercracker and Skywarp both fell over as whatever had caused Skyfire to shut down had left the limbs previously pinning him stinging and non-respondent.

It wasn't too long before Skyfire's spark piece slipped into a more restful state to match his frame. Once it had, Starscream left Skyfire's frame for his own.

Starscream stumbled in, his frame clearly stiff from having been empty a good portion of the cycle. He crawled onto the berth with them, arranging himself so that the plating above his sparkchamber was touching Skyfire's.

"What did you do!?"

One gold optic dimly lit to regard Skywarp.

"My spark builds up extra energy and it's always messed with Sky's neural grid. I just focused it to keep him from properly accessing his frame. Meant to calm him down and ended up completely shutting down the neural grid."

"Well, be more careful next time. This stings and isn't exactly pleasant."

The other optic onlined as Starscream gave Skywarp his full attention.

"It affected you too?" Starscream frowned. "And it hurt?"

Thundercracker cut the conversation short with a growl of his engines.

"It's been a rough couple of orns and a particularly trying cycle. I vote we all follow Skyfire's example and get some recharge."

"But Sky didn't fall into recharge willingly."

"'Warp?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and recharge."

"Ok. Sorry."

XoXoXoX

The sound of the visitor's chime is what woke Thundercracker well into the next cycle. He was tempted to ignore it, or wake one of the others and fall back into recharge, but the knowledge that Starscream would be impossible to deal with right now, Skywarp wasn't waking without more effort than it was worth, and based on the lingering interference in his servos, Skyfire wouldn't be able to wake up for a while yet, is what eventually got him off the berth.

Honestly, it was probably either Hotlink and Bitstream or Acidstorm's trine. Both groups had been prone to visiting often lately; Acidstorm's trine having been sparkinghood friends of Starscream and Skyfire, while Hotlink and Bitstream, childhood friends of his and 'Warp, had come to see Skyfire as a kind of surrogate trine leader in the time the four of them been bonded.

Opening the door to reveal a vaguely familiar grounder was not what he'd expected.

"How… did you get up here?" Because built for grounders Vos was not.

The mech pointed off to the side where there was, in fact, a set of stairs. …Huh… He'd always thought those were part of the decoration.

It took his processor several long moments to remember where he'd seen this particular grounder before, and longer to put a name to the face.

"Soundwave!" Processor obviously still not fully online, Thundercracker stared at the mech in confusion. "You got here fast."

"Soundwave, was concerned, would like to see Skyfire."

Thundercracker realized then just how long they'd been standing in the doorway.

"Uh, of course. Come in. Sorry, last cycle was a rough one. Everyone else is still recharging." Like Thundercracker wished he was. "Starscream kinda manually shut Skyfire down at the end of the cycle, but I'll see if I can rouse him."

"Soundwave, will wait. Assumption, Skyfire needs rest. Thundercracker, can fill Soundwave in."

Thundercracker got them each a cube of energon and they sat together on the couches in the living room while he told Soundwave everything about the situation from Skyfire becoming ill to what had happened the previous cycle. The creep didn't react much as far as Thundercracker could tell, but grounders were hard to read in general. Soundwave let his symbiots out at one point, but they were quiet and well behaved so he let it be.

Thundercracker was finishing up when his bond with Skyfire bloomed with awareness, Starscream becoming aware immediately after.

::Thundercracker?::

He indicated to Soundwave that he was answering a com call.

::I'm in the livingroom Sky. Soundwave came over and I've been explaining the situation to him. :: Gratitude flowed from Skyfire to Thundercracker.

::I'll be there in a moment. ::

There was a muffled thud from the other room as Skywarp woke up; likely by Starscream shoving him off the berth. The three came in a few moments later, Starscream literally puffing up and hissing at the sight of the grounder. Skyfire strode forwards and gripped Soundwave in a crushing embrace, Soundwave firmly hugging back.

Thundercracker tried to pull Skywarp out of the room to give the two some privacy, but Skywarp resisted.

"You said something about a possible solution. Do you still think it would work now that you know more?" The other three fliers looked to Soundwave with hope.

"Results… Not optimal, but better than current options." Soundwave took a moment to compose himself and made a conscious effort to drop his ludicrously formal Tarnian accent.

"Grounder culture, is far more flippant about newsparks than flier culture. Grounders have a device known as Vector Sigma, origin of which has long been lost. Vector Sigma accepts incomplete sparks that cannot be carried to term, or are not wanted, and nurtures those sparks to completion. Others can then come and ask for sparks and may be granted them."

"So I could return for my sparkling?"

Soundwave hesitated before answering, "No. Vector Sigma grants sparks based on personality requests. There is no guarantee that you would be given your sparkling."

The silence that fell over the room was heavy, but none of them could deny that this was the best option they'd been given so far.

"You ok Sky?" Skywarp asked.

Skyfire gave a humorless laugh. "Of course not. I'm going to have to give up my sparkling to someone else if I want us both to live. But, I do want us both to live."

Soundwave placed a comforting servo on Skyfire.

"It has been known, for sparks granted by Vector Sigma to recognize their original carrier should they encounter one another." It was cold comfort though, as what grounder would ever accept an aerial spark, and what aerial would go to Vector Sigma?

 **A/N: So yeah. I'm not very good at sad emotional stuff; unfortunately, it was important enough I couldn't skip it. I'm practicing though! (I re-wrote this chapter** _ **so**_ **many times before I thought it was at least presentable.) Still not sure if I got the emotions I was going for, but I'm done. The month is almost over and I'm not re-writing this** _ **again.**_ **I could really use some constructive criticism this chapter in particular. I began writing on FF because I sucked at writing and needed practice, and I'm still striving for improvement.**


	8. Lasting Love

**A/N: It's still July! So technically I'm not late!**

 **This chapter was supposed to be from Skywarp's, then Skyfire's, and then Starscream's POV… But Thundercracker decided to steal it all and I just kind of let him.**

 **Also, fluff. Especially for Skyfire. Like, this was already going to have some future plot important fluff, and then it got all sorts of out of hand.**

"We need something for our bonded."

"Yeah! We just moved here and we're starting off right with _good_ memories." The extreme to which Skywarp had emphasized 'good' made Thundercracker and Starscream wince. It had occurred to Skywarp that all three of the city states any of them had lived in had some sort of really bad memory connected to it and he had become determined to made this city one full of good memories to look back on when something bad happened. Altihex reminded the twins of their separation, Iacon was just terrible to flightframes, and now Vos reminded them of what they'd lost. Skywarp hadn't been as upset about giving up the newspark as Skyfire, but he had been the most upset out of the trine.

Pity flashed across the vendor's face fast enough that Thundercracker wasn't sure it was ever there. Either way, he was glad Starscream had been looking at Skywarp at the time. He was not in the mood to deal with the scene that would have resulted if Starscream had thought he'd seen pity from another mecha.

"Well, that certainly sounds like a good plan that I would love to help make reality. May I see an image of them?"

Skywarp pulled out an image of the four of them. Skyfire was walking, with Thundercracker walking beside him holding Sky's left hand, Starscream was perched in the crook of Sky's right arm, while 'Warp was seated on Sky's flight array and shoulders. They each had their own version of this image that they kept on them and dozens more throughout the holocubes usually scattered about their domicile; taken and given to them by friends and kin that either didn't understand that this was basically a daily occurrence, or that thought one of them looked nicer than usual that particular cycle.

"Our first centivorn anniversary is coming up and we're trying to make it something special." Thundercracker put in. The appreciative look the vendor gave Skyfire was professional, but it still caused Starscream to preen and made Thundercracker want to snatch the image away.

"Centivorn huh? That's a big one. This should be no problem at all. I honestly expected another trine. Four mechs are much easier to match colors with than six. Is there a design you have in mind or would you rather look at the adornments we have on display? There aren't any wing adornments on display, but we have a few catalogues you can look through if that's what you're looking for."

"We're not here for an adornment. We heard you were the best shop in the area for crystals." Now that he thought about it though, Skyfire had given each of them a couple of adornments over the years, himself a few simple, understated pieces that made him feel good to wear, Skywarp a small handful of whimsical ones, and Starscream a decent pile of shiny, of which he generally wore multiple at a time.

Thundercracker glanced at the silver drape he currently wore on his right wing. Skyfire had given it to him on their very first vorn anniversary. At first he had worn it because of the way it made Skyfire smile to see him with it, but it quickly became something he wore almost daily without even thinking. It was definitely his favorite. Did Skyfire even own an adornment? He'd certainly never worn one in the last cenrivorn they'd been bonded. Maybe Skyfire just didn't like them.

"Well you heard right. Most people want them embedded in some of the fancier adornments though. Is your bonded interested in crystals for jeweling or gardening?"

"Gardening!" Skywarp exclaimed.

The sales mech nodded and led them into another room where they had various crystals growing.

"Is there a certain crystal you have in mind?"

In the end, they got the crystal Crystal City was most known for, about the size of Thundercracker's servo, cut as was most popular at the moment.

As they approached the store's exit, Thundercracker stopped and nudged Starscream.

"Does Skyfire own any adornments?"

"Hnnn… He and the grounder made each other some, once, while they were still third frames. They cut some strips of Rainhaven's good threaded filaments, dyed them, and wore them around their wrists. Called them something stupid like friendship circles too. Skyfire probably got the idea from Rainhaven. He still has it; wears it every cycle."

Skywarp looked at him very confused. "I've never seen Skyfire wear anything."

Thundercracker crossed his arms and tried to decide how serious Starscream was being. "Even if we pretend that something that fit on his wrist when he was a third frame would still fit now, I think one of us at least would have noticed once or twice in the last _hundred vorns_ if Skyfire was putting something on every cycle."

"You don't see him put it on because he never takes it off."

Skywarp suddenly perked up at that.

"OH! Oh! TC the thingy! TC it's the Thingy!"

"'Warp, what 'thingy'? Be more specific." Thundercracker watched mildly amused as Skywarp bounced in place and made a swirling motion with a finger.

"The blue thingy!"

"What blue- wait… That blue thing he keeps wrapped around the main energon lines to his sparkchamber?"

Starscream made an interesting face between a grimace at the reminder that Skyfire actually does that and a smug grin at the temporary triumph of lording information over them like that.

So Skyfire didn't have anything against adornments. Thundercracker looked at some of the adornments around the shop. At the same time, this kind of place wouldn't have anything nearly as simple as his drape, and he did want to see Skyfire wear it more than the rare occasion.

"You guys go ahead. I'll catch up later."

Starscream narrowed his optics even as Skywarp perked up and said much too loudly,

"You're gonna get him a pretty adornment! I wanna help pick it out!"

Thundercracker resisted a groan as the shouts attracted the sales mech's attention.

"We're all going to help pick it out." Starscream's tone left no room for argument. Thundercracker hadn't even decided if he thought Skyfire was going to want it and these two were already set on the idea. Skywarp sent him joy over the bond and even Starscream gave an emotional poke as if to say relax.

Thundercracker sighed and gave the sales mech standing a polite distance away his attention.

"These two, are going to want something sparkly, elaborate, and just generally over the top. I'd prefer something a lot simpler than you sell here. Think you can help us meet in the middle?"

XoXoXoX

Thundercracker watched Skyfire busy himself around his and Starscream's new lab, setting up equipment and already preparing for experiments. Vorns later, and his wings still drooped a bit lower than before the miscarriage, but he seemed to be doing better this cycle.

Setting up the lab was slow going, between Starscream being obnoxiously specific about everything and Skywarp being unhelpfully helpful. Thundercracker caught both of their optics in a silent request. Moments later, Skywarp accidentally knocked over a container of various metal samples, spilling them and hopelessly mixing them up. He hurried to clean up his mess, dumping them back into the container with no heed to the various labels. Starscream began screeching at Skywarp, shoving him out of the way and making an attempt to salvage what he could. Skyfire stopped what he was doing; immediately coming over to calm Starscream, reassure Skywarp, and clean up the mess. Thundercracker made a mental note to thank them later as he slipped out unnoticed by Skyfire.

The new lab had been granted to them in Crystal City. It was closer to both Vos and Altihex than Iacon had been, and though it wasn't as accommodating to flight frames as their home cities, it didn't have the same anti-flight frame mindset Iacon had. The four of them had purchased the highest floor of one of the taller buildings in the city; admittedly for a lot less than the same height would have cost them in Vos.

They would have all moved in together sooner, but Skyfire's teaching contract had kept Starscream and Skyfire in Iacon and there was no way Thundercracker and Skywarp were ever going to live there. Crystal City was a good middle ground not only because of its closer proximity to their home cities, but because it was used to fliers while still under the Senate.

Starscream and Skyfire were both brilliant, with Skyfire just a little bit more so, and thus each had enough degrees and 'specialties' that they were able to make a good income off of whatever project the Council thought was of importance at any point in time in addition to their personal side projects. Technically, neither Thundercracker nor Skywarp necessarily needed to work, but by having jobs they could afford things like the surprise the trine had been working towards for Skyfire since the miscarriage.

Thundercraker landed seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't anything of any real value out here. It wasn't even a place that would attract thrill seekers or those looking for an adventure as it wasn't the kind of area to have sparkeaters or other dangerous creatures. Thundercracker looked around in satisfaction at the secluded, seemingly useless, empty plot of land that the trine had recently bought for quite a few credits, roughly centered between Vos, Altihex, and Crystal City. He walked over to a spot that looked just like its surroundings. Flaring his EM field, a large piece of the ground responded by moving aside to reveal a large, deep hole in the ground. There were stairs spiraling around the edge, reaching down to the bottom, but Thundercracker ignored them.

Hesitating only for a moment, Thundercracker stepped into the hole and dropped several levels. As soon as his field left the hidden sensor's range the door closed behind him. When his own sensors informed him he was reaching the bottom he engaged his thrusters and slowed his descent to something a little more controlled. The light his thrusters gave off illuminated the vertical shaft as well as a tunnel's entrance at the bottom. Going only by the light of his optics, Thundercracker easily walked down the obviously mechmade tunnel, focusing on the fact that it was big and wide enough even Skyfire would easily be able to walk through it instead of the thousands of tons of metal above him.

It wasn't too long before he entered a natural cave. Starscream had found it, completely on accident, while he was doing geological surveys around the planet for the Science Council. Starscream would not stop complaining that he was given something so mundane, on Cybertron to boot, when he could be doing something useful. The Science Council had insisted that finding a previously unknown energon cash would be useful. In the end, Starscream didn't find any energon deposits. He did however, find this natural cavern. Tall enough a guardian class mecha could easily stand up and wide enough to comfortably house a full aerie's worth of seekers. The ground was relatively flat, with many natural ledges, while the ceiling was dome shaped, sloping down into the walls.

Starscream had rigged some lights that got their energy from the metals they were embedded in to give the room a soft glow. Thundercracker made his way to the center, carefully arranging the crystals Skyfire had been growing in their home similar to how they were usually kept. Some of the crystals were from other worlds, some were bought here on Cyberton when credits weren't so tight, and all of them were important to Skyfire. Each crystal had its own story and memories connected to it. He then pulled out the crystals Skyfire didn't know about.

The first was by far the smallest, not even the length of a digit and not much wider. The Praxian gardener they had bought it from had been trying to create a crystal that changed color between red and blue as it reacted to certain atmospheric conditions. The result was a crystal that was red from one angle, blue from another, and purple from yet another. The center crystal that the others had been grafted onto was a relatively common one that became more clear or opaque depending on its surrounding atmospheric conditions. The various crystals feeding off of it had rendered it a milky white, but the center crystal seemed to be feeding of the others in return and had grown slightly faster than them, making the common crystal visible. The Praxian had been happy to get the so called failure off his servos; the trine had been delighted at the color coincidence.

Next were Vos's and Altihex's state crystals. These were the biggest two, though no crystal gardener would call them big. They each came up to Thundercracker's knee plates and were cut as traditionally as the trine could get for their respective city-states. These he placed on either side of the first.

Then he pulled out the crystal they'd gotten earlier this orn; the same cycle they'd bought the high tower floor and adornment for Skyfire. This one was placed behind the first.

Lastly was a servoful of little crystals from Iacon, the biggest of which wasn't quite as big as his thumb pad. It was a wild crystal that only grew naturally in Iacon, but was largely considered a weed. From the moment Starscream had found the cavern, he had begun discretely picking up some of the bigger and better formed ones before they could be crushed and sanded away by the grounders. Skyfire had been fond of them, and if anyone could turn a weed into a proper crystal, it would be Skyfire. He spent a few moments debating on how to arrange them before shrugging and sprinkling them between the others. Skyfire was likely to move all of them later anyways.

Finished setting up for the next cycle, Thundercracker flew back to the lab. He grabbed one of the bigger boxes right outside the door and carried it in. He hadn't been gone for too long, but the more suspicion they could avoid the better. Walking in he realized he didn't need to worry. Starscream and Skywarp were still going at each other, though it looked to be over something completely different at this point.

Thundercracker sent gratitude over his trine bonds; much more discretely to Starscream though so as not to catch Skyfire's attention with it.

Thundercracker slammed the box he was holding down and belatedly hoped there was nothing breakable in it.

"That's enough! Are you two ever going to stop arguing?"

Skyfire looked like he'd completely forgotten Thundercracker was in the room. Guilt slid towards confusion though as Skyfire likely went over his memories and tried to remember the last time he had seen or heard the blue seeker.

Before he could really begin though, Starscream huffed loudly.

"Well maybe if I wasn't trined to a klutz and a lazy slacker we wouldn't have these problems." Starscream stormed out of the lab even as Skyfire's wings hiked up in alarm.

"I'm so sorry." Skyfire scrambled towards the doorway, but didn't quite leave. "He didn't mean any of that. I could feel that he didn't mean it. I don't know what's gotten into him this cycle." With that, Skyfire took off down the hall after Starscream.

"I think I'd feel worse about how much we're stressing him out if I wasn't so excited about next cycle." Thundercracker admitted.

"We wouldn't have to confuse him like this if he wasn't so smart." Skywarp retorted. Then he laughed. "Not that 'Screamer was being particularly helpful. The entire time Starscream was yelling at me Skyfire kept apologizing and claiming that Starscream didn't mean any of the insults he was throwing around. I even tried to do stuff that usually _actually_ angers him."

"Starscream was enjoying the excuse to yell at you too much to fool Skyfire into believing that he was genuinely angry." Thundercracker deadpanned. "And then stormed off to have Sky to himself for a bit."

"Yep."

The two of them moved the remaining boxes from the hallway into the lab. Not knowing where any of it went they left everything just inside the door. Locking up, they left at a slow pace towards the twin sparks they'd willingly tied themselves to.

XoXoXoX

As of this cycle, the four of them had officially been bonded for a full centivorn. It was considered one of the big mate milestones, whether the group were conjux endura or actually bonded. While Skyfire liked to do something little for the three of them every vorn, he'd gotten them gifts, as well as basically been a willing servant, for their two big milestones they'd already passed; their first vorn and their first decavorn.

Thundercracker onlined slowly. His processor felt slow and somewhat foggy, but in a good way. Not like he'd had that weird hallway memory purge again.

Onlining his optics and actually registering the activity over the bond, Thundercracker was rather surprised to find that Skyfire and Starscream were still in the berth. Skyfire was sitting up and reading a datapad, but still.

"Finally awake are we?"

Thundercracker looked up at Skyfire even as a white servo softly caressed his cheek.

"Happy anniversary." Skyfire quietly said.

"Happy anniversary." Thundercracker responded. Checking his chronometer, he realized it was actually pretty late in the cycle compared to when he usually got up. Thundercracker sat up as Skyfire handed him an energon cube prepared in his favorite way. It was somewhat time consuming to do it this way, and he never had the patience to prepare it himself, but Skyfire made it for him on special occasions. Thundercracker took a sip and smiled. Skyfire made it best.

"I was going to read my datapad in the other room, but after I finished preparing everyone's energon, Starscream convinced me to come back to the berth at least until both of you were up."

The only thing Starscream ever complained about in regards to being a twin, was the fact that when one of them onlined from recharge, the other tended to quickly follow suit. He probably wouldn't have had a problem with this if it weren't for the fact that Skyfire usually got up early, and Starscream preferred recharging late. On lazy days where none of them had anything going on Starscream would often convince Skyfire to stay in the berth so that even if it was light, he could recharge more.

The bond between the four of them was wide open. It was somewhat muted by the fact that Starscream was lightly recharging and Skywarp was still completely out, but contentment and a quiet, loving joy washed through the bond. Thundercracker let it wash over him even as he sent it back. No wonder he'd recharged late. This peaceful happiness that washed through him was about to send him back to recharge.

"Do you want anything TC?"

He eyed Starscream draped over Skyfire like a living blanket and Skywarp pressed up against them both.

"You seem pretty occupied at the moment." Thundercracker said, giving Skyfire a teasing smile.

Skyfire shook his helm and made as if to detangle himself from the other two. Starscream stirred online before Skyfire had done more than set the datapad he'd been reading to the side. Without bothering to online his optics, a blue servo reached out and grabbed Skyfire's wrist in a demand to stay put. Thundercracker felt Starscream blindly feel along the trine bonds for a moment. Starscream gave him a mental acknowledging hello, before whining.

"'Warp's not online yet. You have to stay until 'Warp gets up."

Thundercracker softly laughed.

"Well, you heard him. You're stuck till 'Warp wakes up." Thundercracker sat beside Skyfire and leaned on the side Skywarp wasn't currently occupying. Skyfire hadn't been this happy or relaxed in a long time. They talked softly as they waited for the other two to get up.

Skyfire gave him his gift at one point and Thundercracker thanked him. Delighted with what he'd gotten he tucked it into his subspace for later.

The cycle was almost half over by the time Skywarp onlined. Skyfire gave him his prepared energon even as Skywarp stretched back against Skyfire. Through the bond, Starscream was stirring and resigning himself to the land of the online.

"It's already late, a little more recharge wouldn't hurt." Skywarp mumbled. Starscream pulsed agreement at them.

"You don't want your gift?"

Skywarp bolted upright.

"Your gift!" Skywarp teleported away and back in a single astrosecond. He offered the box he was now holding to Skyfire, who took it with some surprise. "It's from me and TC, but Starscream helped pick it out."

Actions meant more to Skyfire than words or gifts, so usually they _did_ something nice with or for him. He took the wrapping off the box and looked hesitantly at them.

"Oh for crying out loud. It is our weird little group's centivorn anniversary. Let them splurge a little on you!" Starscream finally sat up and back. Wanting to see Skyfire's reaction and making sure that Skyfire was actually going to open it.

There was a moment of stunned silence as he lifted out the long custom wing adornment. The material was extremely sturdy, but still light. The adornment itself was the red of Skyfire's highlights. It had a small weighted crystal in the center that was Starscream's shade of red and crystalline magnetic fasteners on each end, one of them Thundercracker's blue and the other Skywarp's purple.

He stared at it as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Thundercracker quickly became nervous. Did he not like it? Would something else have been better?

"It's beautiful."

Thundercracker could practically hear the 'but.' Unless he was imagining that. Skyfire was emanating love and gratitude, but also seem too distracted for just admiring the adornment. Thundercracker glanced at Starscream but didn't recognize the frown he was wearing.

Irrationally afraid that Skyfire was going to reject it before he'd ever even worn it, Thundercracker leaped up. He was actually taller than Skyfire if he stood while Sky sat, making it easy to grab the adornment and carefully wrap it around Skyfire's neck so that the weight was in front and centered. Skywarp caught on quickly, grabbing and attaching the purple crystalline magnet to the tip of Skyfire's left wing while Thundercracker attached the blue one to the right wingtip.

Skyfire looked to Starscream for an opinion. He eyed it critically for a moment before adjusting it a bit so it hung both in the front and in the back.

Skywarp enthusiastically dragged Skyfire over to their full length mirror so he could see too.

Skyfire reached up and hesitantly brushed over it. His wings dipped in Thundercracker didn't even know what. They should have just not gotten anything. The surprise was plenty and this was making him anxious. Skyfire obviously thought it was pretty and wasn't making any moves to take it off, but something was wrong with it and Thundercracker wished he'd spit it out already.

Skyfire turned to say something.

"Don't you dare say that!" Starscream snapped. Thundercracker and Skywarp turned to him surprised. Starscream was genuinely angry. "Don't you dare say that out loud. I hate it when you think it! I hear the groundpounders say it often enough, I will not listen to it from your vocalizer. It's a beautiful adornment that you make look even better."

Skyfire shuffled uncomfortably. "I'm not-"

"Your bonded got you a beautiful adornment that reflects how beautiful they think you are."

Skyfire glanced at them. As if wanting to seek confirmation and nervous to do so.

Was that what this was all about? Starscream was so vain and confidant in his beauty that Thundercracker had assumed Skyfire knew and was just more humble about it. Then again, Skyfire had grown up around grounders that had very different beauty standards. Frames for grounder carrier sparks looked about as different from frames for aerial carrier sparks as one got, basically on opposite ends of the spectrum.

"Well, I wouldn't really say beautiful." Thundercracker grabbed Skyfire's servo. "I'm more partial to gorgeous." He put his lips to the back of Skyfire's servo in an alien gesture that always sent Skyfire's spark fluttering in his favorite ways. Skyfire gave a shy smile and the love that they were all still echoing back to each other turned a touch warmer.

"So you like it?" Skywarp fidgeted in place.

"It's wonderful. Thank you all."

Skywarp gave a little wiggle at that.

"We're not even done!" Skywarp began to drag Skyfire out through the balcony door. "Come on!"

Skyfire looked back at Thundercracker and Starscream questioningly.

Thundercracker shrugged "Now's as good as ever."

They took off for the land they'd purchased. Skyfire looked around in curiosity at the blank expanse. Skywarp skipped over to the door that slid smoothly aside as he flared his EM field.

"This way!" Skywarp called, dropping down. Skyfire was still throwing the other two questioning glances, but followed without hesitation regardless.

Walking into the cavern, Skyfire radiated quiet awe.

"What is this place?" He spotted the crystals they'd set up in the center and headed over to them.

"It's your new garden." Starscream had shed the usual cloak of smug confidence and looked like a sparkling earnestly hoping for approval. This was, after all, from all three of them.

"This whole place. This whole cavern is my new garden?"

"Yep! Property of one Skyfire of Altihex." Skywarp was nervous too, but better at burying it under excitement.

Skyfire kneeled down in front of the arranged crystals at the center of the cavern; a storm of emotion over the bond. He then began to keen. He keened in relief that his bonded still loved him after he gave up their sparkling. He keened in joy that they loved him enough to put all this patience and kindness into showing him they still did. He keened in mourning over the loss of the sparkling, and that they would never know the little one. He keened in spark deep sorrow that the little one would likely never get the chance to live.

The three approached Skyfire. Skywarp wiggled himself between Skyfire's arms even as Starscream and Thundercracker surrounded him.

"We love you." Joy rose through their bond at that and it occurred to Thundercracker that none of them said that phrase often enough.

With a shaky vocalizer, Skyfire responded, "I love you too."

 **A/N: Yeah. I, um, wanted some happy fluffy sap after the last one.**


End file.
